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FACT AND FANCY 



HUMOROUS POEMS 



BY 

CUPID JONES 



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G. F. FUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK 
^7 IVest Twenty-third Street 

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LONDON 
24 Bedford Street, Strand 



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Copyright, 1895 

BY 

F. H. SALTUS 



Ubc TRnfcherbocfter press, iHew IRocbelle, n. H?. 



TO 

ROMONIA AGNES SHOTWELL 



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CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Fact and Fancy i 

The Candid Waiter 3 

The Critical Actor 5 

A Man Sleeps 7 

He Loved and He Skipped Away 9 

The Barkeeper to his Sweetheart n 

The Nihilist ......••• ^3 

The Beer Saloon Cat i6 

The Inventor ^^ 

A Warrior Bold ^9 

The Tomcat's Serenade 21 

A Centaur Speaks 23 

Trials of a Waiter -S 

The Drug Clerk 27 

"Going for the Cash" 29 

The Ghost of the Period 31 

Distraction 32 

"Pretty Poll!" ......••• 34 

A Butcher Sings to his Love 36 

The Millennium 3^ 

Our Navy , . . . • 4° 

Liberality 42 

As Usual 44 



vi Contents. 

PAGE 

The Caledonian Bagpiper's Hard Luck .... 46 

Politeness 48 

The Cook's Appeal to his Love 50 

A Kind of Traveller 53 

Only One Beer 55 

A Pen Speaks 57 

The Monster from Thrace 59 

The Steamship Stewardess 61 

A Farmer's Trials 63 

Etiquette Mad 65 

The Hotel Clerk 66 

The Modern Critic 68 

The Crazy Traveller 70 

The Way of the World 72 

Mongrel Mating 73 

The German Lecturer 74 

The Tourist of the Year 2000 76 

The Way I Won Her 78 

Stimulated 80 

A Hen on her Eggs 82 

His Will 84 

A Surprise , . . . .88 

A Kind of Subscriber go 

Methuselah Speaks to Mrs. Methuselah ... 92 

The Russian Poet 94 

A Woman's Confession 96 

A Strange Courtship 97 

The Pianist v^tho had Received Half a Lesson from 

Liszt 100 

Humbug the Good 102 

My Mermaid Mate 104 

The Lay of a Dahomey Lover 106 



Contents. 



vu 



PAGE 

The Reverie of a Crazy Farmer io8 

Dutch Railroads no 

Evolution in Anatomy 112 

Scared by the Scribblers . . . , . , .114 

A Letter-Carrier's Lament 116 

The Confession of a Library Clerk . . . . iiS 

Advantages of Being a Cyclops 120 

Hunting in South Africa 122 

A Temperance Lecturer 125 

The Invalid 127 

A Wreck 129 

The Botanist 131 

A Blue-Stocking 133 

The Poet's Curiosities 135 

The Tugboat 137 

The Great Billiard Match 139 

The Confession of a Boarding-House Servant-Girl . 142 

The Railroad Conductor 144 

Her Gymnast 147 

Too Sweet for Anything 149 

The Royal Touch 152 

No Education 154 

A Barber's Trials 157 

The Girl Enthusiast 159 

The Polite City 162 

The Astronomer 165 

My Will 168 

A Locomotive Speaks 172 

A Donation 174 

A Bird Fancier's Love Song 176 

The Joking Doctor 179 

The Song of a Chemist i3i 



viii Cojitents. 

PAGE 

The Medium ......... 184 

The Menagerie and the Locomotive .... 186 

The Cruel Doctor 189 

A Kind of Critic 191 

The New Version of the Bible 193 

The Delights of Doom ig6 

Cool 198 

An Undertaker's Trials 200 

Pleasures of Royalty 202 

A Writer 204 

What is It ? 206 

Beauties of Pronunciation 208 

Imagination 209 

Tastefully Tattooed 212 

A Dream 214 

A Rhapsody 216 

One Kind of Writer 217 

Returned with Thanks 219 






Si^^^^^^ 



FACT AND FANCY 



FACT AND FANCY. 

Serpents are charmed by whistling, so books say, 
And cherish tunes in minor like their life ; 

While bears will sit most quietly all day 
If sweetly played to on the Bengal fife. 

Spiders grow merry when the violin 

With powerful strings is delicately played ; 

And mottled lizards glory in the din 
Of blatant trumpets at a street parade. 

Fauns and gazelles most ardently rejoice 

Whene'er they hear, on some green, grassy slope, 

The mellow accents of a tinker's voice ; 
And likewise, also, doth the antelope. 

Canaries revel in the flageolet ; 

A silvery bell will charm the Yorkshire ox ; 
And church-chimes bring a shiver of regret 

Unto the bosom of the Arctic fox. 

Now, if these things are true of certain beasts, 
Why should not others equally enjoy 

Music's rare grace and sweet symphonic feasts, 
And with pure melody their craniums cloy. 



Fact and Fancy, 

Perhaps the brindled gnu and Nubian yak 
Would sell their horns the tambourine to hear. 

The leopard, too, may doat on Offenbach ; 
The crocodile may worship Meyerbeer. 

Who knows ? The pig may risk his precious days 
To listen to the priestly xylophone ; 

And the gay ostrich may with unction praise 
The bass staccati of a Dutch trombone. 

Sleek Lapland elks may doat on Auber's lays, 
And Wagner may inspire the roofless cats ; 

While Mozart's scherzo may with rapture raise 
The very fur from off Virginian bats. 

Verdi's strong strains may calm the fierce raccoon, 
And Schubert may distress the faithful Spitz ; 

And perhaps the old Bohemian Girl's last tune 
May give the cynocepkalus the fits ! 

For, 't is a stern fact and a well-known thing 
That the tame mule, likewise the jackass bland, 

Delight to hear a '' nigger minstrel" sing. 
And revel in a tenth-rate German band. 




THE CANDID WAITER. 

A RESTAURANT I walked into one day. 

Feeling the pangs of hunger thro' me dart, 
And quickly sitting down, without delay 

I asked the whiskered waiter for the carte. 

Among the viands that entranced my eye, 

I saw a filet h la Pompadour ; 
'T was sixty cents, the price was not too high, 

I felt that meat my palate would allure. 

But the calm waiter whispered in my ear, 
" Don't take that dish, 't is out of cow and tough, 
Besides, the sauce is made of lager beer. 

And, what is more, they do not give enough." 

I thanked him for his candor, and I said, 
" Give me this duck-stew a la William Tell." 
And he replied, " 'T is buzzard stuffed with lead. 
And if you eat 't will surely give you " — " Well 

Well, well," I cried, " give me some corned-beef hash, 
And six nice cutlets from the guileless lamb " ; 

But this strange waiter cried, " Be not so rash. 
Our beef is old bull, and our lamb is ram." 



4 The Candid Waiter. 

" Confound it — bring some eggs." " Nay, nay," he 
sighed, 
*' Our boss collects our eggs upon the stage ; 
He is an actor of the kind called ' snide,' 
And all his hen fruit is renowned for age." 

" Then, by the Holy Gods ! bring on a steak, 
A simple steak, with gravy, all alone." 

" Hist !" he replied, " our steaks your jaw would break ; 
They 're made of rubber, celluloid, and bone." 

" Indeed ! Well bring me a salad in a bowl. 

With that and bread I '11 make my meal, alas !" 

" Nay, ask not that," he lisped, " for on my soul, 
The lettuce here is made of skunk-weed grass." 

" Well, if that 's so, kind man, give me advice. 
What can I take, my hunger to appease ? 
Tell me, fond waiter, what you have that 's nice, 
And I will thank you on my bended knees." 

Then moaned the waiter in my rosy ear 

(While killing flies with many dexterous welts), 
" To speak the truth most honest and sincere, 

I think you 'd better breakfast somewhere else !" 



THE CRITICAL ACTOR. 

A FRIEND presented me one day 

To a new star just rising : 
A man of thirty springs, we '11 say, 

And dressed in style surprising. 

He chatted glibly, drinking beer, 

About theatric questions ; 
And deigned to whisper in my ear 

His critiques and suggestions. 

He said, " Upon my word and truth, 
One hundred times I 've stated, 

Miss Davenport and Edwin Booth 
Are awfully o'errated. 

" Miss Anderson, I do not think, 

For starring 's worth a penny ; 
She '11 fizzle out as quick as wink. 

Of chic she has n't any. 

" There 's Lotta, well, she 's half played out, 

Barrett is sixty easy ; 
And Jefferson, without a doubt. 

Is getting old and wheezy. 
5 



6 The Critical Actor. 

" Old Coquelin, who from Paris came, 
Lacked style and art and humor ; 

While Sarah Bernhardt 's very tame, 
When passion should consume her. 

" Bandmann is good in many a role. 
There 's no use of denying ; 

But then, you know, he has no soul, 
His intellect is dying. 

" Florence does to the past belong, 

I never cross his portal. 
That man has done the stage more wron^ 

Than any other mortal," 

Then he arose, and with a leer 

Off to his theatre started. 
Leaving me there to pay his beer 

As soon as he departed. 

Of course, I had no word to say. 
Because he talked so gaily ; 

But I was told, the following day, 
That he was " supe " for Daly. 




A MAN SLEEPS. 



HIS EAR EJACULATES. 



I WEARY of the life he makes me lead. 

My tender drum my master loves to blight, 
And when half deaf and in my sorest need, 

He plays " Tannhauser " to me half the night. 



HIS EYE ENUNCIATES. 



My case, dear Ear, I really think is worse, 
Because no pleasure upon earth I find. 

He makes me read the German print I curse, 

And which, of course, will shortly make me blind. 



HIS MOUTH MURMURS. 



Alas ! I suffer too. My teeth he breaks 
By gnawing nasty pretzels, sour and tough, 

And of abominable spicy cakes 

My master never seems to have enough. 



HIS NOSE NOTIFIES, 



'T is sad, my friends, but sadder is my fate. 
Because he fills me with his moist rappees, 

That odious snuff we all abominate — 

And sixty times a day he makes me sneeze. 
7 



A Man Sleeps, 

HIS LIPS LISP, 

He soils my beauty, rosy, rich, and ripe, 
With Harlem Conchas, viler cigarettes, 

And when that 's through he takes a wretched pipe 
And with foul nicotine my tissue wets. 

HIS HEART HALLOOS. 

Ah friends, that 's naught. I, his poor beating heart, 
Have in our joint career unhappier been. 

For I, his most important, noble part, 
Am daily sullied by distressing sin. 

HIS STOMACH SPEAKS. 

Your lots are hard, O bosom friends, but still 

My luck is far more terrible I fear. 
Because my master, whether well or ill. 

Fills me with gallons of imported beer. 

/ cannot stand it, and as yoti exist 

Solely through me, I will all fates defy, 

For, far too weak to struggle or resist, 

I think I '11 give up work and let him die. 



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HE LOVED AND HE SKIPPED AWAY. 

Beside my cheerful fire to dream 

This evening I have tarried ; 
To think again, in bliss supreme, 

Of all the girls I married. 

Of late my memory is not sound, 

And greater is the pity. 
For I most heartlessly confound 

Belinda, Jane, and Kitty. 

As for the name of my first wife, 

Who took my boyish fancy, 
I cannot tell, upon my life, 

If it was Lu or Nancy. 

And I undoubtedly forget 

The lineaments of Aggie ; 
I rather think she was brunette — 

No, — that was little Maggie. 

My precious list is here to tell, 
Longer than Don Giovanni's — 

That 's right ; eight Sues, one Isabel, 
Twelve Kates, and sixteen Annies. 
9 



lo He Loved and Skipped Away. 

The Don with me could never vie, 

A harder share I carried ; 
He only loved his girls, while I 

Was always fairly married ! 

There 's May, of whom I was so fond, 

And there was jolly Dora — 
Now let me see ; was she a blonde ? 

No, that was Leonora. 

I heard they died ; of Mary Janes, 

I 've had about a dozen ; 
Three Wilhelminas, four Elaines, 

And one of them my cousin. 

And in the South, defying laws, 

Of quadroons I had twenty, 
While way out West, three blooming squaws, 

And Kickapoos in plenty. 

But I must cease this talk to-day. 
These lists my mind have fuddled. 

About my spouses, I must say, 
I am completely muddled. 

Bachelor life I do not find 

So very hard and dreary. 
And, of this search for womankind, 

I 'm really getting weary. 

'T is time to cease this life of snares. 

Both criminal and vicious ; 
Bah ! — I forgot those girls up stairs ! 

The youngest is delicious ! 



THE BARKEEPER TO HIS SWEETHEART. 

I 'm writing now, my lovely Sue, 

Beside a smoking toddy. 
To say that I belong to you 

In spirit and in body. 

I yearn to praise your eyes so fair. 
Those orbs as brown as sherry. 

And tell you that your rippling hair 
Hath hues like " Tom and Jerry." 

Your wit pops up like ginger beer, 

'T is varied as a tulip ; 
And your delicious breath, my dear, 

Is sweeter than a julep. 

You know I 've sworn to love you long. 
But words we will not bandy ; 

I simply state my love is strong, 
Yes, quite as strong as brandy. 

Take pity on the fluttering heart 
Your eyes have filled with gashes ; 

I cannot stand sly Cupid's dart 
As I stand whisky smashes. 
II 



12 The Barkeeper s Sweetheart, 

Life unto me without thy face 
Hath neither taste nor odor ; 

'T is tame, and flat, and commonplace, 
Like selzer or plain soda. 

Alas ! I dream of you so much, 

I think of you so madly, 
That I begin to lose my touch, 

And mix my cocktails badly. 

I make my sangarees so weak 
That they would vex a Quaker ; 

Last night I let a beer keg leak 
And lost my silver " shaker." 

In fact, if by your proud disdain, 

I 'm left without a guider, 
I soon will lose my mighty brain. 

And serve " stone fence " for cider. 

For grim despair each dismal night 
Comes down upon me thicker, 

And oh, sweet Sue, if you don't write 
I '11 have to take to liquor. 





THE NIHILIST. 

His name was Ivan Adalbert 

Michailoff Orfulrysky, 
And at St. Petersburg he dwelt, 

In Rue Explodoffivski. 

Deep in a cellar dark he slept, 
Mephitic, close, and narrow, 

And all the awful things he kept 
Would freeze a monarch's marrow. 

At four A.M. he would creep up 
To scan the gray horizon, 

And in a Borgia-looking cup 
Would mix obnoxious " pizen." 

And with wild placards in his hat. 
And lighted bomb-shells handy. 

He 'd go to hunt the autocrat. 
Rather the worse for brandy. 

Under his bed, concealed from sight, 

He kept a big torpedo. 
Enough to fill all kings with fright 

From Warsaw to Toledo. 
13 



14 The Nihilist, 

And every crevice in the wall, 
Each rat-hole in his banister, 

Was filled with objects to appal : 
Grenades and grape and canister ! 

With boomerangs his stove was packed, 

Enough to kill ten nations ; 
And in each nook were Chassepots stacked. 

And misspelt proclamations. 

His sleeves were crammed with aconite. 
Strychnine was in his locket ; 

And twenty pounds of dynamite 
Were always in his pocket. 

For of the Czar's mysterious life 

He swore to be the solver, 
And for that purpose kept a knife, 

Brass knuckles, and revolver. 

If all things failed, he likewise had. 
To martyrize and bleed him, 

A poem called " The Spring is Glad," 
And two new plays to read him. 

But, ah ! Ivan was prisoner made 

While placarding the city, 
And his poor dwelling was betrayed 

By one of the Committee. 

They found enough material then 
In that room, close and murky, 

To arm six hundred thousand men 
And march right into Turkey. 



The Nihilist, 



15 



So he was hung, although with awe 
He swore his preparations 

Were only for his mother-in-law 
And some of her relations ! 




THE BEER SALOON CAT. 

Maltreated, scorned, ill-fed, abused, 
I wander round the great saloon, 

Knowing my life so badly used. 
Will end in horrid manner soon. 

My mistress has no love for me. 
She never knew I once was sleek ; 

And yet I might a Venus be, 

Did she not scald me twice a week ! 

As for my master, should I dare 
Before his eyes my paws to lick, 

I 'm very sure that then and there. 
He would salute me with a kick ! 

And, oh, the satire and the pain ! 

I, a most wretched, feeble wreck. 
Am called by every one '* Elaine," 

And have blue ribbons round my neck ! 

But, to be truthful, I must say. 
Their symmetry is disarranged ; 

And that for eighteen months to-day, 

Their odious knots have not been changed. 
i6 



The Beer Saloon Cat. i^j 

In fact, my life 's a dream of fear 
Since first I saw this dreaded house ; 

I principally live on beer, 

And never once have caught a mouse ! 

Beside the stove an hour to pass 

On wintry nights, I am not loath ; 
But if found out, I hear, alas ! 

The thunders of a German oath. 

And then, unless I use my legs 

In ways that would make lightning pale, 

Some one will deluge me with dregs. 
Or throw hot water at my tail ! 

And I, who hate the world unkind, 
I, who am famished and oppressed, 

Care not, so long as I can find 

In some bright future, peace and rest. 

And that is why when I shall see 

My master writing " Mutton Pie" 
Upon the bill of fare, in glee 

I calmly will prepare to die ! 



THE INVENTOR. 

An idea struck his mind, 

He was elate — 
A new thing of its kind, 

Bound to be great. 

To work he did prepare, 
And straightway bought 

Instruments choice and rare. 
Just as he ought ; 

Chemicals in a cup, 

And secret springs : 
And then he builded up 

A thing with rings, 

With rivets, screws, and nails- 
Working all night. 

With genius nothing fails. 
His plan was right. 

The motive power was there, 

'T was done at last ; 
He leaned back in his chair, 

And chuckled fast. 

One proof was needed more. 

He had great trust ; 
The thing moved on the floor 

And then — it bust ! 

iS 




A WARRIOR BOLD. 

** To win thy love, I would, unflinching, meet 
The fiercest rat e'er harbored in thy house, 

And to protect thee, oh my peerless sweet, 
I 'd dare the arena with a famished louse. 

" The awful bee that booms around the air 
I 'd slay for thee and thy embrace divine, 

And I would meet the tree-toad in his lair 
And knock his odious spirit thro' his spine. 

" I 'd taunt with scorn the fat, defiant mite, 
I 'd brave the cockroach on the kitchen floor, 

And with a hundred June bugs half the night 
I 'd fight for thee, sweet angel I adore. 

" The fat, terrific gold-fish in the globe 
Would scare me not, for I am free of sins, 

Upon the rim I 'd haughtily disrobe, 

And knife in hand would dive into his fins. 

" I 'd carve his gills and flay each aureate scale, 
I 'd boomerang his dorsal to a shred, 

I 'd excavate the rudder in his tail. 

And leave him floating on his stomach — dead. 
19 



20 A Warrior Bold. 

" Mightier than Gulliver I would advance 
And rend the liver of the tater-bug, 

Upon the corpses of fierce snails I 'd dance 
In deadly grasp the beetles I would hug. 

" To win a kiss from thy seraphic lips 
I 'd trample on the caterpillar's breast, 

I 'd brave the vermin that infest old ships, 
I 'd leave the fiendish wasp no earthly rest. 

" I would feel stronger, nobler, and more wise 
If for thy sake I could for once devour 

The odious gnats obnoxious to thine eyes, 
That haunt the bowels of the cauliflower. 

" Yea ! in my prowess that can never fail, 
To win thy passion, ardent as the South, 

I 'd massacre the horn-end of a snail 

And mash the grim mosquito in the mouth. 

" I 'd leave my blood, my essence and my life 
In fierce encounter with the nimble mole. 

I may be vanquished in the awful strife 

But thou willst' get the last howl of my soul. 

" And, should I perish in the unequal fight. 
Come to my tomb, oh love, by soft dews wet. 

And in the starry silence of the night 

Smoke all the bugs off with thy cigarette." 



THE TOMCAT'S SERENADE. 

Love, on the shed to-night, 

The moon shines chaste and bright ; 

Cloudless, I see it plow 
Its glorious pathway through 
The firmament's deep blue : 
Miaou ! 

The wind is soft and still. 
Only the whip-poor-will 

Cries on the willow bough ; 
Let me not lonely die. 
Hark to my plaintive sigh : 
J/z'aou ! 

In spite of my dislikes, 

I 've braved the fence's spikes, 

My rivals all know how ; 
For weeks, my spirit free 
Has constant been to thee : 
Misiou / 



I love thy dulcet purr, 
And the delicious fur 

Upon thy candid brow ; 
And hold in reverent awe 
The soft touch of thy claw : 
Miaon ! 



22 The Tomcafs Serenade. 

Malicious cats have said 
To thee, that I was red, 

And colored like a cow ; 
'T is true, but hast thou seen 
Mine eyes of emerald green ? 
M/rtou ! 

Oh, most bewitching beast. 
Come to the dainty feast 

That I have ready now ! 
Of fish a royal slice. 
And fourteen little mice : 
Miaozif / 

Angora, with blonde hair, 
My peerless one so fair. 

Receive my loving vow ; 
The Tomcats' star above 
Will guard our noble love : 
Miaou ! 

But hark : what is that sound ? 
I must not here be found : 

There 's going to be a row. 
Adieu ! I think I hear 
Some brickbats falling near : 
Miaou ! MIAOU ! 




A CENTAUR SPEAKS. 

A Centaur gay am I, half man, half horse, 
A blood descendant from old Chiron, too ; 

Endowed with wisdom and prodigious force, 
A miracle of beauty entre nous. 

I drive for nothing, being my own team, 

Upon myself at races I can bet ; 
My life is one sweet human-equine dream, 

Its rare duality I ne'er regret. 

I feed my horse-part on delicious oats, 
Carrots or turnips and the fragrant hay ; 

While all ray manly portion simply dotes 
On soft-shell crabs and omelette soiifflee. 

I love to smoke my redolent cigar, 

And drain cool bottles of old English ale ; 

Watching the nimble swallows from afar. 
Languidly switching flies off with my tail. 

The gods have dowered me with a wondrous gift, 

For with my deadly bow I fight with ease ; 
While, if o'ermatched, I still can kick, and lift 
My foes audacious o'er the highest trees. 
23 



24 A Centatir Speaks. 

My costume is most dainty and unique, 
A saddle and a beaver hat I wear ; 

And I can warble in the purest Greek, 
Or softly neigh some old Italian air. 

The only thing on earth I really dread, 
Is, when I romp at twilight in the dew. 

To feel a sudden cold assault my head, 
Because with that I get the glanders, too. 

When the pure dawn is rosy with the sun, 
I rise and in the streamlet wash my face ; 

And when that duty pleasantly is done, 
I curry down my body with great grace. 

To find some shady and sequestered nook, 
Across the fields like mad I gaily roam ; 

Returning thence to read some favorite book,- 
The parlor, like the stable, is my home. 

So, on the whole, I think I 'd rather be 
Just as I am, a horse and man, for then 

I 'm better than most specimens I see 

Walking about, half donkeys and half men. 




TRIALS OF A WAITER. 

When my money was all squandered 

In this very pleasant land, 
To a restaurant I wandered, 

Which was slightly second hand. 

It was kept by an Italian 

With a very evil stare. 
And his beefsteaks were of stallion, 

And his mutton chops of mare. 

But the wretch a fraud pronounced me, 

To my never-ending grief, 
And with odious language bounced me 

As a loafer and a thief. 

Then I got a situation 

In a third-rate cafe, French, 

Where I lost it by flirtation 

With a frowsky kitchen-wench. 

Then I tried a good old German, 
Who sold liberwurst and beer, 

But the napkins were not ermine, 
And he paid me by the year. 
25 



26 Trials of a Waiter. 

So I tried a cafe, Spanish, 

Where the cigarettes were fair, 

But a century cannot banish 
All the garlic from my hair. 

Then I worked in hope, still trusting. 
With Ching-Sang who paid enough, 

But his cat-stews were disgusting, 
And his rats were always tough. 

But I found a lunch-room awful. 
Far beneath a Bowery stoop. 

Where they deemed it right and lawful 
To have roaches in the soup. 

And where, quite enough to sicken. 

They would fling down colored checks. 

And would only give of chicken, 
Some cold stuffing and the necks. 

Still I say, be up and doing. 

With a heart for any fate, 
And a shameless life pursuing. 

Learn to labor and to wait. 



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THE DRUG CLERK. 

I WEARY of a life like this, 

Repose I 'm sadly needing, 
But chances of ulterior bliss 

Are rapidly receding. 

How can I 'mid poetic sweets 

Divinely bask and frolic, 
When some one while I 'm reading Keats, 

Comes in and yells with colic ? 

And how when dreaming of soft rills 
And moonbeams sympathetic, 

Can I prepare a pint of squills, 
Or some fierce, brown emetic ? 

To scan the laureate's noble book, 

I have no time nor leisure. 
And should I try to read " The Brook,' 

I 'm called on for magnesia ! 

And when grand Milton most exalts 
My mind and mood and manner, 

Ten orders come for Epsom salts 
And ipecacuana ! 
27 



28 The Drug Clerk. 

I cannot find, I grieve to say, 
A single moment handy. 

And I believe the town to-day 

Drinks far more drugs than brandy ! 

The mass of quinine people buy, 
Is something most terrific, 

For castor oil the children cry, 
The whole town is morbific ! 

And then, besides, a dire mistake 
Was mine to-day, while dreaming, 

The cough-stuff that I had to make, 
I fear with strychnine 's teeming ! 

And so I have resolved to-night. 
No more to be a moaner, 

But read my Byron out of sight. 
Somewhere in Arizona. 




"GOING FOR THE CASH." 

'T IS a strange and a wonderful city, 

A mixture of splendor and shame, 
But a worm gnaws its heart without pity, 

And but little of praise can it claim. 
The inhabitants, harmed by the canker, 

Grow heedless, and reckless, and rash. 
While the aim of their life is to hanker 

For chances to " go for the cash " ! 

'T is a town of iron-nerved politicians. 

Whose power is as great as their zeal. 
Thro' the land they sow seeds of seditions, 

And reap when they can, — if not, steal. 
Do you think that they care for the nation. 

For their country, the laws, or such trash ? 
No indeed ! All may go to damnation, 

If they can but " go for the cash." 

At the courts, justice, shunned and forgotten, 

Is reviled with a laugh and a curse ; 
'T is an obsolete word, vague and rotten, 

And it blinks its blind eyes for a purse. 
Money tears every statute asunder, 

And compels every jury to quash. 
While talent and truth fall and blunder, 

And everyone goes for " the cash " ! 
29 



so '' Going for the Cash!' 

The young girls of the city are beauties, 

World-famous for form and for face ; 
But they 're not very strong at house duties, 

And learn only to waltz well with grace. 
They care little for art, or its rapture, 

Much more for a dress or a sash, 
And the lovers they go for to capture, 

Accept, and then go for " their cash." 

There are preachers who speak of the passions, 

Who throw in a word here and there. 
Of the opera bouffe and the fashions, 

And the style of high shoes now to wear. 
They prate of the torments of sinners. 

Of teeth that in hell grind and gnash. 
While they only love praise and good dinners. 

And go with a will for " the cash " ! 

There are men with great names and substantial, 

Of fortune and standing, who take 
Much delight in all things styled financial, 

Who put millions and millions at stake ; 
Does the thought of the poor ever soften 

Their hearts, or prevent a big crash, 
That breaks out in Wall street so often ? 

Not a bit, for they " go for the cash " ! 

So, my friend, after years of inspection, 

Of study, of notice, and toil, 
I think I have caught the infection, 

That springs from this liberal soil : 
The new bank-notes you kindly entrusted 

With me, must now pay for my hash. 
For dear Alfred, I 'm hard up, and " busted," 

And, like Yankees, I '11 " go for your cash." 



THE GHOST OF THE PERIOD. 

In vain from mystic realms of air, 

To earth I glide in joy, 
No longer can my presence scare, 

The XlXth century boy. 

Within his fierce and fearless heart, 
There is no sign of dread — 

He simply says, " You just get out, 
Or else I '11 bust your head." 

In cemeteries damp and dark. 
Beneath the fir trees' dome. 

Or in some dreary, dismal park, 
Disconsolate I roam. 

I see a body-snatcher pass 
To seize his speechless prey. 

And gliding o'er the withered grass 
I stand, and bar the way. 

But terror comes not to his eyes, 

No anguish veils his look. 
He turns around and simply cries, 

" Vamoose the ranch, old spook." 

What ca7i I do ? o'er dell and lea, 
I walk from twelve till five. 

With no more notice taken of me 
Than if I were alive. 
31 




DISTRACTION. 

My wife and I have lived for many years 

In perfect peace, and I have nothing lacked, 

Were it not for a hundred trifling fears 

Which constantly our changing minds distract. 

I 'm always in a dream, and so is she ; 

My mind is vague, absorbed, and so is hers ; 
Wrapped up in books I always fail to see 

The common life that all around me stirs. 

When I get up I love to smoke, and read 

The latest news from north and east or south. 

But always try to fold my pipe, indeed, 
And put the morning paper in my mouth. 

I often take my early bath all dressed. 

When in a wild and most forgetful mood ! 

And then disrobe to meet some breakfast guest, 
And gambol in the parlor nearly nude. 

My wife 's a woman, I must really say. 

Of wonderful, unquestioned mental powers ; 

But still she can forget things every day, 
And often boils my eggs for sixteen hours. 
32 



Distraction. 33 



I often wish to take a cup of tea 

Before my hours for promenading come, 

But always, by some curious mystery, 
I find its chief ingredient to be rum. 

When taking up my pen to work to-day. 

On " Mental Power " I wished to write a lot ; 

But see ! — at present, in my usual way 
Of mad distractness, that I have not. 




" PRETTY POLL ! " 

I LOATHE the small dimensions of my cage ; 

My perch and ring afford but little fun : 
A hundred trifles fill my soul with rage, 

And things are done as they should not be done. 

My mistress don't know how to mix my food ; 

My cuttle 's old, a subject of fit wrath : 
And then her giddy Biddy is quite rude, 

And talks to me in Irish at my bath. 

The favorite cat, a low and wretched beast. 
Is dressed in ribbands when it takes its milk ; 

On chopped up sweetbreads it doth often feast ; 
Its couch is made of costly cotton-silk. 

Still, I regard it with less jealous force, 
Now that its tail is fashioned like a bob ; 

For I can gladly say without remorse. 
It was my beak that did the blessed job. 

My owner is a garrulous old maid. 

Full of strange freaks and Bloomingdalian whims, 
Who passes hours within the garden shade, 

Teaching your humble servant Watts's hymns. 
34 



''Pretty Polir 35 



I have to say, before I seek my rest, 

A dozen prayers, and in my memory keep 

Such poems as she fondly calls the best j 

For instance — " Now I lay me down to sleep." 

I 'm fed on lettuce, pap, and nasty rice, 

Held in her thin aristocratic hand. 
Although she knows I doat on fruit and spice, 

And glory in tomatoes, raw or canned. 

I sing her songs and madrigals and glees : 
My voice, considering that I am a bird, 

Is p'rhaps the best for German melodies 
That any living mortal ever heard. 

My repertory 's very choice and great, 
My upper register is strong and sweet, 

And I could make poor Patti quite irate 
By warbling Traviata in the street. 

But my old mistress, pillar of the church, 
Frowns at my choice selections, one and all. 

And when I chirp and whistle on my perch, 

She makes me sing the Funeral March from Saul. 

She does not seem to know, the guileless thing. 
That I lived years upon the Spanish coast ; 

That Cuban sailors taught me how to sing ; 
That Spanish is the language I love most. 

So some day, when my lettuce is not fresh, 
I '11 rouse her wildly from her Sunday sloth, 

And make cold shivers creep along her flesh, 
By thundering forth some fierce Castilian oath ! 




A BUTCHER SINGS TO HIS LOVE. 

I LOVE thy soft and liver-colored eyes, 

And thy sweet, lustrous kidney-tinted hair ; 

Thy glance brings to my heart a new surprise. 
Thou art my lamb, delectable and fair. 

I love the dainty fluctuance of thy breast. 

And the soft flesh that shields thy cutlet part ; 

And pure as sweetbreads, or a love confessed. 
Are the delicious beatings of thy heart. 

I love thy tongue, as gentle as a calf's. 

That flashes wit and repartees' swift points ; 

And I adore thy beautiful horse-laughs. 
And yearn to clasp thee in my iron joints. 

Thy sleek, lithe limbs are rosy like a steak. 
Thy skin is fairer than fresh marrow white ; 

I 'd take the hide off legions for thy sake. 
For thou art my prize cow and my delight. 

Thy lips are redder than the spring veal's gore. 
When forth it gushes on my brawny arms ; 

Thy haslet-colored temples I adore. 

No juicy meat is sweeter than thy charms. 
36 



A Btitcher Sings to his Love. z7 

Thy cheeks are round and plump, like lambkins' fries, 
Thy form, like graceful ewes, is most complete ; 

And the sweet music of thy loving sighs 
Is like the sound of many flocks that bleat. 

Thy teeth are whiter than the forest deers, 
Thy brow is like a filet streaked with lard ; 

And oh ! my love, just judging from my tears, 
I have been panting for thee pretty hard. 

Therefore be mine, oh darling of my heart, 
Give me thy winning love serene and fresh ; 

Let us be joined on earth no more to part, 
Be of my bone, my sinew and my flesh. 




1^^^ 


1 


1 


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ffi 



THE MILLENNIUM. 

There will come a happy and glorious time — 

At least so the preachers tell — 
When the lion and lamb in every clime 

In a wonderful peace will dwell ! 

When all will result in a feast of love, 
When the snail will live with the yak, 

And the panther will ask the mottled dove 
To parade on his hairy back ! 

The asp will entwine in its gentle fold 

The delightful old Polar bear ; 
And the festive monkey, for gold untold, 

Would n't tear out the camel's hair ! 

How splendid those days, if they ever come, 

Will appear to a race unborn — 
To see a wren sing on a baboon's thumb, 

And a thrush on a mastiff's corn ! 

How strange to behold the serene koodoo 

Protect the wild ox from flies. 
And witness a penguin, or even two, 
Brush the tear from the jaguar's eyes ! 
33 



The Millennhnn, 39 

Then the cat will sport with the frisky mice. 

And narrate them exciting tales ; 
While the wolf and kid, in a simple trice, 

Will touch glasses of English ales ! 

The puma will play with the elk and newt. 

With a dormouse upon his leg ; 
The whims of the leopard the ewe will suit. 

And the zebra will lay an egg ! 

The ocelot then will protect the quail, 

And dispel all the wombat's woes ; 
While the sloth will arouse his sleepy tail 

And treat weasels to drinks and shows ! 

And the world when seeing this wondrous sight 

Will marvel and stand transfixed. 
And say, " We suppose that the thing 's all right, 

But, by Jove, it is rather mixed ! " 



OUR NAVY. 

When we command our mighty ships 

On one point to assemble, 
The British lion bites his lips, 

And powerful nations tremble. 

Poor Mexico is much distressed, 

And many starving bigots 
In Vera Cruz prefer the pest 

To our death-dealing frigates. 

While all the Spaniards under age 

Upon the Guadalquivir, 
Think of the thunders of our rage 

And desolately shiver. 

Enormous sums of gold we paid 

For this, in our devotion, 
The veriest mite ! we have displayed 

The crack fleet of the ocean ! 

Cutters and rams we have at length, 

All newly made and splendid, 
Marvels of speed, while grace and strength 

In each are grandly blended. 
40 



Our Navy. 41 

But then, at home they oft remain 

Witholding devastation, 
Content to feel that they maintain 

The honor of the nation. 

We do this to protect our worth 

In foreign commerce clearly, 
Which is the envy of the earth, 

And which increases yearly. 

For who would ever dare to meet 

Our battle ships tremendous, 
Or dare defy our model fleet 

And model guns stupendous ? 

So, only portions of the same 

Are sent around as roamers, 
Re-bottomed Franklins changed in name. 

And old Miantonamahs ! 

And our fine navy, people say, 

If spared by the junk dealer. 
May yet contrive in some wild way 

To thrash poor Venezuela. 





LIBERALITY. 

A REAL mania I had to give nice things away, 

To my friends any time in the year ; 
I would do so at night and I 'd do so at day : 

Every one had a fine souvenir. 

For friend A who was fond of all liqueurs most rare, 
I would spend all the cash I could get. 

And would fill up his rusty antique etagere. 
With the sweetest of French anisette. 

Now friend B was too poor to drive out to the park. 
When the trees produced wormlets in May, 

So I rushed to my bank, keeping everything dark, 
And I bought him a nag and coupe. 

My chum C had got married (a real pretty girl), 

But she had n't a red for her dot ; 
So I bought her a necklace of ruby and pearl, 

And I bought him a house and a lot. 



My friend D failed in business and had n't a cent. 

But as he was a jolly old boy, 
I gave him his clothes, and I paid all his rent, 

And I filled his aorta with joy. 
42 



Liberality . 



43 



My friend E lost his fortune in Michigan stocks, 

And proposed to go swiftly to hell ; 
But I stopped all such fooling, kept watch on the docks, 

And built him a summer hotel. 

My friend F's shattered health caused me greatest despair, 
To destruction he seemed to be hurled ; 

So to save his dear bones and change climate and air, 
I paid for his trip round the world ! 

Now they every one thanked me and called me a king, 
And years after they all grew quite rich ; 

But I swear that none ever did give me a thing. 
Except one, and he gave me the itch ! 




AS USUAL. 

A Pa, train, I won't say where, 
Nor will I name the station, 

I took to breathe the country's air, 
And tackle my vacation. 

I found a grimed and cinderous seat, 
'Mid soot and gaseous vapors, 

And then prepared in ways discreet 
To read the morning papers. 

I had the Herald, Times, and World, 

With other sheets diurnal. 
Town Topics and The Sun unfurled. 

And with them, too, Drake's journal. 

I had a Science Magazine, 

Being a bit pedantic. 
And divers others lay between 

My Harper'' s and Atlantic. 

I had of novels new a score. 
The latest, to astound me ; 
While forty guide-books — even more — 
Did totally surround me. 
44 



As Usual. 45 

My favorite works upon the seats 

I neatly placed ; my Schiller 
Was bound by strings to Hood and Keats 
And so was Daisy Miller. 

My Tenneyson, in which I pride, 
Was there its pleasure yielding ; 

And likewise, resting by my side. 
Were Walter Scott and Fielding. 

And yet, the book fiend, hovering nigh, 

Scanned all my treasures over, 
And asked me if I would n't buy 

Red Mike, the Bloody Rover ! 





THE CALEDONIAN BAGPIPER'S HARD LUCK. 

I ROAM about the streets all day, 

I 'm full of snap and pluck, 
And yet I am obliged to say 

I 've ne'er had any luck. 

When with my stirring pipes I fare 

To gain my daily soup, 
I frequently and everywhere 

Get booted off a stoop. 

And when I dance the " Highland Fling " 

Until my tongue is black, 
I generally get, poor thing, 

A cart-rung on my back. 

I yell in areas dark and cold, 

My native Scottish strains, 
And then receive, instead of gold, 

A kicking for my pains. 

And yet I sing in sweetest ways 

About the Melrose moon. 
And sometimes a high C I raise 

In " Edinboro' Toon." 
46 



The Caledo7iiaii Bagpiper. 47 

But 't is in vain that I am spry, 

I always fail to make 
Sufficient in my tramps to buy 

Some haggis, gin, and cake. 

Folks giggle when they see my kilt, 

My claymore and bare knees, 
Although I know that I am built 

Like Alcibiades. 

And yet I come from that sweet land, 

By me forgotten not ; 
Land of Ben Nevis, stern and grand. 

The itch and Walter Scott ! 



POLITENESS. 

At first they played Bizet's Toreador, 

While I at my high window blandly smiled, 

Then they ground William Tell for an encore, 

And with some strains from Faust an hour beguiled. 

All these were followed by some gems of Strauss, 
While I stood listening to each charming air, 

Then came a German ballad, Nix Konimt, Waus, 
And still I lingered nonchalantly there. 

I had not one red cent upon me then 

Wherewith to revel in the flowing cup, 
But they knew not this odious fact, poor men, 

And so they sent their starving monkey up. 

His frame was clad in robes of deepest red, 
A great blue bang was tied upon his tail. 

Plumes, once light yellow, dangled on his head, 
And his lean legs were sheathed in rusty mail. 

He climbed with startling ease the granite stoop 
(Ah ! such, indeed, is the great power of will ! ) 

And, with a grunt, like some one low with croup. 
He doffed his feathery hat upon the sill. 



Politeness. 



49 



He grinned and pirouetted in the sun ; 

Of many courteous bows there was no lack, 
While I, in pure politeness ne'er outdone, 

With a sweet smile, like Talleyrand, bowed back / 




THE COOK'S APPEAL TO HIS LOVE. 

My views on celibacy thou 

Hast utterly demolished ; 
For brighter are thine eyes and brow 

Than any pan I 've polished ! 

I held a passion for thee long 

(Which hath not made me fatter) ; 

It rises now, unique and strong, 
Like well-conducted batter ! 

I never in my life, I 'm sure, 

In all my cuisine's splendor, 
Have found a chop as soft and pure 

As thy hand, white and tender. 

For naught thy radiant grace can mar, 
And, though thy heart is stony. 

Thy little teeth are whiter far 
Than rice or macaroni. 

My faith in thee is great and good. 

And noble as was Bunyan's, 
And I scorn rivals as I would 

A ragout without onions ! 
50 



The Cook's Appeal. 51 

I 'm fain, O siren of my heart, 

To sing thy praises louder ! 
Perfection of all girls thou art, 

As perfect as my chowder. 

And never tell me that thy praise 

Is not sincere or valid ; 
I '11 cling to thee as mayonnaise 

Doth cling about a salad. 

Days of ill-luck may come to me. 

Days of most dire disaster. 
But still I '11 be as true to thee 

As cruets to their castor. 

I am without thee incomplete, 

As smelts before the snows are ! 
As royal dinners minus meat, 

As shad without their roes are ! 

Therefore, O ox-eyed Juno mine ! 

Why shun connubial blisses ? 
Let me once taste, more sweet than wine, 

The bouillon of thy kisses ! 

Does not the truffle far in France, 

Dying of love and stricken. 
Cross the wild ocean's broad expanse. 

To meet its destined chicken ? 

Yes, yes. Love does these wondrous things, 
In manners strange and splendid ; 

And yet, in spite of sufferings, 
Alas, we are not blended. 



52 The Cook s Appeal. 

Alone and sad, while lacking thee, 

Through life's dull paths I 've rambled ; 

Only say " Yes," and we will be 
Legitimately scrambled ! 

And shouldst thou prove thyself unkind, 

To me so pure, so lovin', 
Some day my calcined bones thou 'It find 

Reposing in the oven ! 

And then thy haughty heart will ache 

To know, by such abuses, 
That I have perished for thy sake, 

Dissolved in my own juices. 




A KIND OF TRAVELLER. 

He goes from Ecuador to Maine ; 

He studies every people, 
He visits every crypt in Spain, 

And every German steeple. 

He roams among Liberian rocks. 
He haunts Thibet's wild region ; 

Men find him on the Styrian lochs, 
And on the lakes Norwegian. 

Greece he has seen a dozen times, 
Iceland has hailed him loudly. 

And in the bland Hawaiian climes, 
He oft has wandered proudly. 

He scales the Himalayan peaks, 
He strolls through vales Ionian, 

He hunts the buffalo with Creeks, 
And puns in Patagonian ! 

He goes to Europe every year. 
Is known to all the sailors. 

And in his life has seen, I fear, 
More than ten Bayard Taylors ! 

53 



54 A Kind of Ti^aveller, 

A modern Wandering Jew is he, 

A student of all races, 
And when there 's nothing left to see 

In strange, exotic places. 

He homeward turns for fame to look, 
Quite sure that he will win it. 

And writes a most ambitious book, 
Without one new thing in it ! 




ONLY ONE BEER. 

He enters in your beer saloon, 
With kindly words of cheer ; 
How do you do, my boy ? " he cries, 
*' Things look right cosy here ! 

My health ? None of the best, you know ; 

Kidney complaint, I fear. 
I just popped in to have a chat ; 

I '11 only take one beer." 

His gaze while speaking thus to you 

Most surely is sincere ; 
You pity him, and really think 

He '11 only take one beer. 

Then you converse of various things, 

Ridiculous or dear ; 
And ere a minute has elapsed 

You rap again for beer. 

Now he forgets his feeble health. 

His eyes are calm and clear ; 
And while you pay another dime. 

He drinks his second beer. 

55 



56 Only One Beer. 

Then as the conversation glows, 

And other friends appear, 
This man who only came for one, 

Drinks eight more mugs of beer ! 

His voice grows loud as he narrates 

His wonderful career, 
And down his restless throat he pours, 

At your expense, more beer. 

And when dull midnight comes around ; 

In ways far from austere, 
You carry to some distant stoop 

The man who takes one beer ! 



n 



.^< 




A PEN SPEAKS. 

I AM of gold, and by an artist made, 

I pride myself I cost so very dear ; 
For fifteen shillings for my worth were paid, 

And unsurpassed has been my long career. 

Passed round for many years, from hand to hand, 
I 've signed, I know, full many a famous name ; 

And once I wrote an epic poem grand. 
Which gave its author an immortal fame, 

I 've written lovers' letters by the score, 

I signed the checks for countless sums of cash ; 

A pundist used me when compiling lore, 
A scribbler handled me when writing trash. 

And once a schoolboy used me to indite 
A diatribe against his teacher's wife ; 

While burnished up like new one Christmas night 
I served as gift to one made blind for life ! 



Then on a hotel inkstand I did dwell 
For many weeks, and finally was sold 

To one poor lout who could not write or spell, 
Who pawned me by the way, for I was gold. 
57 



58 A Pen Speaks. 

After I wrote a song, quite charming too, 
Dashed off by genius at a single breath ; 

And in a regal hand, when I was new, 

I shuddering signed the warrant for a death ! 

A thousand dunning letters have been mine, 
A thousand articles, both good and bad, 

I have been forced to praise and to malign 

To make hearts joyful and to make hearts sad. 

Thro' countless hands I rapidly have passed ; 

I have seen strange things, and I begin to know 
The trials and tribulations vast 

Of pen life, but I 'm falling very low. 

For now a peasant owns my golden grace ; 

He holds me in his horny hand unkind, 
While trying in most comic ways to trace 

The boorish need that fills his vapid mind. 

He poises me distractedly above 

The only sheet of paper he has got ! 
His thoughts are full of passion and of love, 

And ah ! poor wretch ! he does not know I blot. 



THE MONSTER FROM THRACE. 

I LOVE my dear Jimmy for all kinds of things, 
For there 's no one like him on the earth, 

I 'd spurn for his sake the vile passion of kings 
And reject English dukedoms with mirth. 

Such beauty in man is most wondrous and new 

And assuredly never was seen, 
For one of Jim's eyes is a heavenly blue. 

And the other a heavenly green ! 

One eyebrow is black and the other is white, 
Yet as white as the storm-driven snow ; 

And his ears, which are ever my joy and delight, 
Down his shoulders triumphantly grow. 

His teeth are kept in by strong caoutchouc bands, 

Which lend him additional charms, 
And my darling has three thumbs on each of his hands 

And a gooseberry patch on both arms. 

And oh, how dear Jimmy delightfully drinks 

The sweet cocktail or strong sangaree. 
With his green eye on fire like a famishing lynx 

And his blue optic winking at me. 
5g 



6o The Monster from Thrace. 

He 's at the museum on show every day, 

They call him " The Monster from Thrace," 

But I love and adore him and willingly pay 
My bright silver to own his sweet face. 



THE STEAMSHIP STEWARDESS. 

She usually weighs twenty stone, 

Her age is near to fifty ; 
But all the passengers must own 

That she is spry and thrifty. 

She 's crossed the tempest-driven sea 

In every kind of season, 
And knows of every malady, 

The remedy and reason. 

She 's kind to ladies when they 're sick 

As any sister mason ; 
And, for her size, is mighty quick 

In bringing in the basin. 

She tells them that the pain won't last, 

And many fibs she forges, 
And when the first attack has passed, 

She in the store-room gorges. 

For it requires a mass of meat, 
Of soup, and tea, and brandy. 

To keep upon her mammoth feet 
This giantess so handy. 
6i 



62 The Steaiuship Stewardess. 

Then when her work is nicely done, 
Up in her berth quite frisky, 

She gently climbs at set of sun, 
Perfumed with Irish whisky. 

And in the night, above the roar 
Of all the waves, you wonder. 

While listening to her fiendish snore, 
Like fog-horns filled with thunder. 




A FARMER'S TRIALS. 

I 'VE had most dreadful luck this year, 

From early August until May, 
And all my beauteous crops, I fear. 

Are doomed to desolate decay. 

The bugs my Murphies first devoured. 
The ants upon my dahlias lunched. 

My mammoth cabbages all soured. 

And famished skunks my egg-plants munched. 

My yellow squash was taken off 

By odious caterpillar bites. 
And measles and the whooping-cough 

Settled my luck the last three nights. 

Compound neuralgia of the back 

Laid out my bob-nosed, pale green peas. 

And odious jaundice cleared the walk 
Of all my beans and celeries. 



By croup my early spinach bust, 

And winds malarial, quagmire-born, 

Knocked into nothingness and dust 
My prize verbenas and new corn. 
63 



64 A Farmer s Trials, 

Death's awful rattle then I heard, 
For more than sixteen mortal hours, 

In the sweet breasts of my preferred, 
And lovely white-leaved cauliflowers. 

My honeysuckles, pure and rich, 
Perished by rheumatism keen. 

My turnips suffered with the itch. 

My oyster-plant pegged out with spleen. 

All my tomatoes gave up ghosts. 

My champion chilblain sore oppressed ; 

And my poor onions in great hosts 
Died of the chocolate-colored pest. 

A single one I could not save. 
Cholera all my lettuce stripped. 

My garden was an open grave — 
My grass-plot was an awful crypt. 

Lumbago struck my Chinese herbs ; 

A felon fixed my last poor rose, 
And really I lack words and verbs 

To picture to you all my woes. 

For my asparagus decayed 
By ennui and a haunted sleep. 

And acres of the petal-blade 

From earth my water-cress did sweep. 

So all that 's left to me, I think. 
Is to accept fate in good part, 

And swiftly try to die of drink, 
Encouraged by a broken heart. 




ETIQUETTE MAD. 

Yes, Mabel, to-day I saw Harry ; 

With blushes his cheeks were suffused, 
As he asked me — yes, asked me to marry, 

And I — would you dream it ? — refused. 

He is handsome and brilliant and witty, 
He has eight thousand dollars a year, 

He 's the beau of the clubs and the city — 
Yet I jilted him calmly, my dear ! 

He has family, pride, and high station. 
He enjoys all the good things on earth, 

And he promised, without hesitation, 

I should have all my costumes from Worth. 

Yes, and if I consented to marriage, 
I could choose the best opera box, 

And wear furs when I rode in my carriage 
From the costliest kind of blue fox ! 

And yet 't would be folly to marry, 
Tho' I love him far better than life. 

For, my dearest, my darling, sweet Harry, 
At dinner will eat with his knife ! 



65 




THE HOTEL CLERK. 

Radiant in spotless linen he will stand, 
Smiling and unctuous, keen-eyed and alert, 

A gold pen-holder in his jewelled hand, 
A huge Brazilian diamond in his shirt. 

He grins when pretty damsels come to look 
If friends arrived by the last city train. 

With nimble hands he offers them the book, 
Accompanied by smiles that turn their brain. 

His curled hair reeks oi ponmade a la rose., 
His bushy eyebrows smell of bandoline, 

And in his small talk he divinely throws 
The wit and languor of a Valois Queen. 

He answers every question with calm ease, 
He knows the last town-news, the best cigar, 

He finds the coolest spots, the greenest trees, 
He also knows the near road to the bar. 

He winks and chuckles, compliments and jokes ; 

His giant mind knows everybody's room. 
He has the pedigree of all the folks. 

And yet his role doth modestly assume. 
66 



The Hotel Clerk. 67 

His talents in society are great, 

He bangs the piano and the bones, to boot, 
And he is never known to hesitate 

To play a Chinese ballad on the flute. 

At billiards he is equal to Garnier, 

At euchre he is sharper than a lynx. 
At everything he 's first by night or day ; 

First leading prayers and first in leading drinks. 

He is a perfect and enduring joy, 

Made after Nature's best and holiest law. 

And only twice an hour he tells the boy, 

" Wake up, you brute, or I '11 smash you in the jaw ! " 



MW\ 




THE MODERN CRITIC. 

With pompous mien and all-important air, 
He '11 say your views are premature and rash, 

And with a grave grandiloquence declare 
That all the verse of later years is trash. 

To satisfy his most aesthetic mind, 

In all the modern work he labors through, 

He grieves to state he really cannot find 

One worthy line, one thought supremely new. 

He calmly adds that it appears to him 

There 's lack of power in overrated Keats, 

That Shelley 's very commonplace and dim. 
That Tennyson the same old song repeats. 

You ask : " And Swinburne ? " Well, he has some fire, 
He will allow ; " but then so very crude." 

" Browning ? " — " Bah ! verbose, of his style you tire." 
" Hugo ? " — " A bard of second magnitude." 

" Longfellow ? " — " Dabbles in all kinds of verse." 
" Lowell ? " — " A fraud, and so was Bryant, too. 

They do not write," he cries, " in language terse. 
As real and god-born poets always do." 

68 



The Modern Critic, 69 

Then he will say, to your surprise, 

That Whittier is a rhymester, very low ; 
And finally, will harshly criticise 

The morbid ravings of that " crazy Poe." 

" Rosetti ? " — '' Never made a decent rhyme," 
He shrieks, while Bret Harte has no lofty flight. 

" Byron ? " — " A loon, he never was sublime," 

" And William Morris ? " " Don't know how to 
write." 

And as he talks it seems as if the air 

Were tinted red with Tennysonian gore ; 

While bits of lacerated Baudelaire 
Seem to exist and quiver on the floor. 

And as you gasp and dare not add a word, 
This critic gently smiles and says to you : 

" I wrote a poem which you never heard ; 
I think you will admire it — it is new." 




THE CRAZY TRAVELLER. 

I 'd love to kiss the Blarney stone at Rome, 
And rove thro' glades of Abyssinian maples, 

And I would gladly make my future home 

High on the barren, snow-clad hills of Naples. 

Sweet would it be to pass my life away 

Listening in Scottish mosques to some Te Deum, 

And take a sail in Saragossa bay, 
Or fool about Alaska's Coliseum. 

I fondly think I would most happy be 
To live in Labrador, that sunny Eden, 

And, in the Spring, to cross the Polish sea, 
To hunt the timid elephants of Sweden. 

But sweeter far, on warm autumnal nights, 

' Twould be to skate through Holland vast and hilly, 

And, with my chosen girl, see all the sights 
Of Limerick's Louvre and Lisbon's Piccadilly. 

Yea ! and my Muse could warble her content 

Far better than a Gerster or a Patti, 
If I could see the sphinxes girdling Ghent 

And view the leaning towers of Cincinnati. 

70 



The Crazy Travellej", 71 

Oh happy day ! to wander everywhere 

Like that poor Jew of Thackeray's, Mr. Fagin, 

And see Long Island's obelisk pierce the air 
Or count the minarets of Copenhagen ! 

Surpassing joy 'twould be ! and then, again 
To fly from sphere to planet like a fairy. 

And watch from some pagoda in Ukraine, 
The golden domes of southern Tipperary. 

This is my dream, but here, alas, I stay. 
Bereft of money, travelling-means and pity. 

Compelled to take a ferry every day, 

And see the glistening wharves of Jersey City. 





THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 

To win new worlds Alexander sought, 

And to the field a million warriors brought, 

The end for him was death and those who fought. 

Caesar's ambition shone upon his face, 

He needed earth, the stars, the skies, and space. 

Bellona was his goddess and his grace. 

To gain a mastery over sea and land, 
Napoleon, his moves prodigious planned. 
Millions of soldiers died at his command. 

And yet a man with rheumatism bent, 
With starving eyes and by exhaustion spent. 
Cries every night : " I sell The World — one cent. 






72 



MONGREL MATING. 

Thy sweet baiser fait revivre I'espoir, 

And dawning Love can fashion thee most fair. 

Ah ! j'aime indeed le parfum de ton hair, 

And I could worship thee from morn to soir. 

Mon Dieu ! for thee I 'd sacrifice devoh', 

And would forget the teachings of fua mere, 

Believe in everything, however noir, 

And brave the dreadful boot-kicks of your/,?r^. 

Thou art mine ange, my own petite che'rie, 

Thou art the star I sue in passion's role, 

The girl I wish to marry, tout de stcite. 

Therefore, become my bride, my soft amie. 

The tre'sor of my esprit and my soul, 

And to ice-cream/,? willingly will treat. 




73 



THE r.KKMAN LKCTURER. 

Kaki. Schwar r.-r-AiH was tho rrcaturo's name, 

A genuine Teuton stunner. 
And all the wimUI knew that he eame 

From Obenheitnerlnunner. 

At Denver Hall lie opened sales. 
His subject was '* The Motion 
And Intluenee of Fishes Tails 

Upori the Indiaii (.'•cean." 

lie entered, bowing, on the stage. 

\\'hile hearts with pleasure tluttered. 
He was near eighty years of age. 

And int'aniously stuttered. 

He seemed to be the worse tor beer. 

In consequence, elated ; 
He had a wen behind his ear. 

And both arms amputated. 



His cork leg plainly could be seen 
By the vast throng delighted, 

.\nd goggles o\' an euAerald green 
Proved him to be near-sighted. 
74 



The German Lecttirer. 75 

His head was balder than a coot, 

Part of his nose was missing, 
And on his limbs a mottled suit 

Started the public's hissing. 

His general presence to the crowd. 

Of genius never hinted ; 
He had the heaves, he spoke too loud, 

And insolently squinted. 

Crutches upheld his withered spine — 
The programme said 't was shattered ; 

But he was such a wreck, in fine, 
This trifle little mattered. 

He then began his lines to try. 

And various scenes he painted, 
Until a duck-egg with his eye 

Became (^uite well acquainted. 

He howled and shrieked, in accents wild. 

About all kinds of fishes ; 
His false teeth fell out when he smiled. 

His head kept dodging dishes. 

Until the audience arose, 

A beastly fraud pronounced him. 
And with a bullet in his nose. 

Unanimously bounced him. 



THE TOURIST OF THE YEAR 2000. 

He will sail for Egypt some sunny day, 

To visit the Nile o'erjoyed, 
And will find they have carted the Sphinx away 

And that Cheops has been destroyed. 

He will go to Pisa, the quaint and free. 

The town of mediaeval power. 
And will reach it only in time to see 

The collapse of the leaning tower. 

To Helvetia then he will be expressed, 

By the glaciers to be awed. 
But will find the Jungfrau and all the rest 

Of the glittering mountains thawed ! 

Then to " do up " Amsterdam he will haste, 

But will learn, on Ostende's shore. 
That the dams are broken, the lands made waste, 

And that Holland exists no more ! 

In those coming days of intense surprise 

The tourist no chance will hold 
In catching a glimpse of Italian skies, 

For in Rome he will die of cold. 
76 



The To^trist. 



77 



Vesuvius long will have ceased to fret, 

In Mexico peace will reign, 
And there won't be a single cigarette 

To be purchased in France or Spain ! 

Then the Mammoth Cave will be all caved in, 

The lakes of Killarney, dry. 
And the porcelain turrets of old Nankin 

Will no longer infest the sky. 

So he will return to his dear New York, 
Where for years he has not been, 

And will find it a Brobdignagian Cork 
Or a parody on Berlin ! 




THE WAY I WON HER. 

We walked among the flowers and ferns, 

Talking of things botanic, 
When first my passion found release 

In words and sighs volcanic. 

She was from Boston, so was I — 

It was the same old story, 
Of talent, beauty, love, and youth, 

In a conservatory. 

" Alice," I cried, " thy soul is pure 
As yon white Phyllocactus ! 
And thy sweet lips are like the core 
Of the red Leptomachtus ! 

" Dearer to me are thy blue eyes 
Than burrs concurbitaceous ! 
And that rare plant Linnaeus said 
Had ovules cinchoraceous ! 

" No herb exotic, to my mind, 
Hath odor so delicious 
As thy sweet breath, like pinks in June, 
Or leaves holosericeous ! 
78 



The Way I Won Her. 79 

I cherish germs of love for thee ; 

In thy heart I would plant them ! 
More rare than sepals pentaloid, 

Or bright Ixionanthum ! 

" Answer me, love, my living rose. 

Dispel these vague doubts hideous ; 
Let me but call you for all time, 
My own Monochlamydeous ! " 

Blushing, she reached a covert spot, 
Where parents ne'er would think us ; 

And gave me with a charming smile, 
A purple Leptorhynchus ! 

I knew its meaning well, and plucked 

An Eucalyptus Willis, 
Which she placed in her corsage, with 

A yellow Machrophyllus. 

Among sweet Blepharadife, 

And fragrant Lophostralis, 
I won that learned Boston girl. 

The blonde aesthetic Alice ! 




STIMULATED. 

He was so awfully blase, 

So tired and apathetic, 
That stimulants he took each day, 

To make him energetic. 

But brandy cocktails by the hour 

Poured down, could not delight him, 

And even Cayenne pepper-sour. 
Failed sadly to excite him ! 

And when he found this could not stir 
His blood, made thin by pleasures, 

Something was wrong he did infer, 
And took to other measures. 

So when he went to a soiree 

To dazzle and adorn it, 
Within his glove he 'd hide away 

A fierce, gigantic hornet. 

And maddened by its rousing sting 
And wild cachuchas furious, 

He sometimes said a clever thing 
But oftener a curious. 
80 



Stimtdated. 

Some nights he 'd slowly roast his ear 
With sulphur, and the paining 

Especially when most severe, 
Made him quite entertaining. 

A wasp secreted in his nose 

Was known to make him charming. 
And when he razored all his toes, 

The small talk was alarming. 

A moxa burning up his spine 
Produced results delicious, 

And Prussic acid in his wine 
Dispelled his spleen pernicious. 

But, when he took his " Henry Clay " 

(The finest in the city), 
And singed his eyebrows half away, 

He really could be witty. 

But ah, alas, one fatal night, 
When there was to be dancing, 

He girt his loins with dynamite 
Simply to be entrancing. 

In quantity a slip he made. 

And when it burst it bore him 

About ten miles, and now the shade 

Of Greenwood hovers o'er him. 
6 





A HEN ON HER EGGS. 

Ah ! ah ! this time I 've got, I think, just five, 
White as the moon upon an August night. 

I long to see the contents well alive, 

For those chicks, still unborn, are my delight. 

My eldest egg — now let me pause and see : 
He '11 be a valiant rooster-bird, of course. 

Having the grace of the ailantus tree, 

A linnet's voice, the brute strength of a horse. 

My second, I must very fondly dream, 
Will be z.poule de leitres, and very wise ; 

She in linguistics will be held supreme. 
And she will learn the idiom of the flies. 

That third, delicious, speckled egg of mine 
Will bring me forth the handsomest of males, 

With military genius, I opine — 

A fowl the foe of garden slugs and snails. 

That other there — that dotted little dear — 
Will cause my poor maternal mind regret ; 

For she will be, I positively fear. 
The wayward Cleopatra of my set. 
82 



A Hen On Her Eggs. ^z 

But, ah ! that one that has a beauty mark 

Right on the top, from duty ne'er will quail ; 

She, Christian-like, will suffer in the dark 
And be the chickens' Florence Nightingale. 

So saying, the hen clucked loudly in her joy, 
And waved her wings upon the unhatched eggs ; 

But then appeared a stalwart poultry-boy, 

With squinting eyes and odious crooked legs ! 

He seized her offspring right before her eyes, 
Took the three best, the ones she prized the most, 

And, to the mother's infinite surprise, 

Vanished around the corner like a ghost ! 

And, while she hurried after him to say, 

" Spare, spare my children, and be ever blest ! " 

A weasel, who had seen no food that day. 

Happened to tramp along, and sucked the rest. 





HIS WILL. 



A BOHEMIAN TESTAMENT. 



Resolved this night to die without regret, 

By deadly poisons I contrived to get 

On trust from an apothecary's boy ; 

I think that I can well my time employ 

Before I perish in my discontent, 

By scribbling down my will and testament. 

Therefore, I, sound and sane of mind, do say, 

That, Monte-Cristo like, I give away 

All that to-night I lawfully possess. 

And that is very little, I confess. 

My diamond ring, gold set, of sterling weight. 
Unto my love I cheerfully donate ; 
But as that article is up the spout 
Her faultless hand, I fear, must go without 
Its dazzling coruscations, 'less she choose 
To get it from the meanest of all Jews. 
If so, the crumpled ticket she will find 
Hid in the third slat of the unhinged blind ! 

When I, serene and beautiful, lie dead 
Upon my pillowless old feather bed, 
84 



His Will. 85 



Let no one ever carelessly assert 

The right to touch the lace upon my shirt ! 

This I bequeath to the ideal chum 

Who told me that from Flanders it did come, 

Purchased in Mechlin, very rare and old ; 

While I, who never have been badly sold, 

Know well he bought it in this happy land, 

Far down the Bowery, and at second hand ! 



My costly wardrobe, linen, shoes, and hats, 
Beau Brummel scarfs and elegant cravats, 
I hereby give, although it draws my tears, 
To be sold off by sordid auctioneers : 
And if the lot brings in a dollar bill, 
(This is my testament and codicil) 
Let it be given, firmly I adjure. 
Unto the hungry hosts of suffering poor ! 



My colored meerschaum pipe, I hope my heirs 

Will hand unto the poor old man down stairs, 

Who doffed his hat to me the other day, 

I know he made an error, but I say. 

Give him my darling pipe for love and law — 

It has a broken stem and will not draw. 



I also offer ten original plays, 
Written in by-gone, glad Bohemian days, 
Unto the friend who said " they are a treat, 
But with Sardou you never can compete ; 
You lack the fervor of a Dumas fils ; 
Why not leave luckless managers in peace ? 



86 His Will. 

Renounce, I beg, these crazy six act things, 
And spare the public many sufferings ! " 
To him, who, having all my essence sapped. 
Would hurry home my fancies to adapt, 
I leave these plays beyond all further claim ; 
They now are famous, under his own name ! 



Hoping my landlord's cultured taste to suit, 
I leave to him my best enamelled flute ; 
One of the many thousand, I may state. 
Once played upon by Frederick the Great ; 
And to his child, and likewise to its nurse, 
I leave my harrowing and my withering curse ! 



My sudden death will make that landlord moan. 
For in this city I have lived unknown ; 
I have no relatives, nor have I had 
A single friend to make existence glad, 
Except himself, and he I know will pay 
The men who drag my beauteous form away. 
I ask him not to lavish gaudy flowers 
Upon my cofifin, or place Chinese bowers 
Of radiant roses round my jasper tomb ; 
All that averts the horror of death's gloom, 
Is now to positively know, that he 
Will be compelled by law to bury me ! 



This document, arranged with legal skill. 

Is, as I said, my testament and will ; 

The awful poison on the table stands ; 

I touch it with my white and ringless hands ; 



His Will. 



87 



Although they shake, I feel that I am bold, 
And death for iTie no pain or shame can hold ; 
But now that I such fortitude have shown, 
This fearful suicide I will postpone ; 
And as my room seems very dark and drear, 
I think I '11 toddle out and take a beer ! 





A SURPRISE. 

She stands in the argent moonlight, 

With roses in her hair. 
I watch ; — her eyes will soon light, 

Finding my letter there ; 
There where the leaves are strewn light 

Under the gaunt elm bare ! 

She leaves the ball-room's splendor, 

Its flattery, glare, and heat 
For me ; I hear the tender 

Soft tread of satined feet ; 
What would I not surrender, 

Her timorous glance to meet ! 

But no ; I must dissemble. 

Radiant with love, and wise ; 
How she will start and tremble, 

And flash with frightened eyes, 
When from the fern and bramble 

To kiss her I arise ! 



But hark ! I hear her seeking 
Another path than this ! 
SS 



A Surprise. 89 

(Confound the dry twigs creaking) 

Something has gone amiss. 
What ? ah ! I hear her speaking ! 

Good heavens, I hear a kiss ! 

Fierce fevers burn me torrid, 

Now love and life are vain ! 
I saw her kiss his forehead — 

Hush ! here they come — what pain — 
By — gemini — 't is her horrid 

Old father home again ! 




A KIND OF SUBSCRIBER. 

I *M fond of reading all the news, 

So I became subscriber, 
To a good standard paper, famed 

For talent, snap, and fibre. 

But in it I could never see 

One item interesting ! 
It never jniblished to my mind, 

A column worth digesting ! 

I read it carefully each day, 

But oh, supreme derision, 
I never saw one burglar's death, 

Nor heard of a collision ! 

No brutal brawls were spoken of, 
No earthcpiakes — no destruction ! 

No maddened men who hung their wives. 
Nor even a seduction ! 

I never in its pages found. 

The loss of any steamer ! 
Nor the heart-rending suicide. 

Of some poetic dreamer ! 

No stirring news of grand revenge. 
No crime in foreign places, 
90 



A Kind of Stibscrider. 91 

No tales of girls who vitriol threw 
In one another's faces ! 

Nothing in fact that pleases me, 

And never sign, or word or — 
A line of anything about 

A first-class, fiendish murder ! 

Now I, who am a real just man, 
Would not pronounce it gammon, 

If once a while it wrote up plagues, 
Or some tremendous famine ! 

I would have bought it all my life. 
Ay ! and its columns cherished, 

If it had only had one storm, 
When eighty sailors perished ! 

It seems there are no more mad dogs, 

No knives, no Prussic acid ! 
And, judging by this sheet, I think 

Mankind is very placid ! 

But if the editor, who says 

He is the people's tutor. 
Does not report some decent rows, 

I '11 go with my six-shooter, 

And with the skill I have to hit 

At thirty yards a taper, 
I '11 give nis staff a bit of news 

The next day for that paper ! 



METHUSELAH SPEAKS TO 
MRS. METHUSELAH. 

Oh, dost thou remember our youthful hours, 

When I was thy humble beau ? 
When we laughed and sighed in the daisy bowers 

800 years ago ? 

When the brightest of futures before us lay 

One hopeful, delicious track ; 
When I was a dude not a bit blase\ 

Some trifling centuries back ? 

Can'st thou recall the fond days of yore. 

Our travels o'er land and sea, 
When I was 154 

And you were just 93 ? 

Can'st thou summon up in thy mind anew, 

The charms of our love divine, 
When you were 272 

And I was 309 ? 

Ah ! then how our love did supremely thrive. 
How we dwelt in a mutual Heaven, 

When you were 385, 
And I was 407 ! 

92 



Methuselah Speaks. 93 

And can you recall in your present state, 
For old age makes my memory sad, 

When I was 888 

The first spat we ever had ? 

And how on my back you broke the sticks, 

A job that was neatly done. 
In the year of your life 806, 

And of mine, 901 ? 

But we 're nearing the 1000 now, my dear, 

We no longer are fresh and strong, 
Old age is beginning to tell, I fear, 

And we cannot linger long. 

All those happy days are forever past. 

The happiest bards have sung, 
And I see Death coming, with mind aghast, 

For 't is sad to die so young. 




THE RUSSIAN POET. 

He wrote a thousand poems to the Czar 
With loyahy intense and ardent rhyme, 

He likened him unto the A. M. star, 

And called his person godlike and sublime. 

He praised his mighty genius and his will, 
To laud his angel-eyes he made a point, 

And got off twenty pages with great skill. 
To glorify his noble second joint. 

For this the Czar in dismal frenzy cried, 

" He shall no more write verses in my lands," 

And so the poet was dragged out and tied 
While the court jailer cut off both his hands. 

But he, tho' balked, was still by this untamed, 
And finding multilation quite a bore, 

He hired a man who was not much ashamed, 
And he dictated fifty poems more. 

Then the fierce Czar rose on his Royal Ear, 
And with a Nijni yell, a Moscow shout, 

Ordered his serfs his hapless tongue to shear. 
And had him flayed for two weeks with a knout, 
94 



The Russian Poet. 95 

The luckless wight then sought his hut's repose, 
And there his many wounds began to heal, 

And soon he managed with his agile toes 
To write another volume with great zeal. 

The Czar grew blue about his princely gills 
When this he heard, and bade his doctors flee 

To find the bard and drug him with foul pills, 
And carve his feet off right above the knee. 

Then the poor poet, weakened by such blows, 
Bought with his kopecks simply to begin. 

Ten alphabets of wooden blocks in rows 
And felt the upraised letters with his chin. 

These he could choose and make his serf obey, 
And place them nicely till the word was clear, 

And, by this sweet expedient, every day 
He wrote, say 70,000 lines a year. 

And when the awful Czar heard this, the shock 
Made his Imperial forehead anger-black. 

And so he had him booted off a dock. 

With three brass cannon strapped upon his back. 



A WOMAN'S CONFESSION. 

I Loved him for his great poetic power, 

And all the charming lines he always wrote. 
Over his brilliant efforts I would gloat, 

And read his sonnets every half an hour. 

He sang of India, rich with bud and bower, 
While every day fresh graces I could note, 
And I had ticklings in my slender throat 

When he compared me to some fragrant flower. 

And he was poor, for such men always are, 
While I, old, rich and pure, for him forsook 

My happy home, for he had called me siren ! 

JVoiv, in his soul I read a trifle far. 

For half his verse was cribbed from Lalla Rookh 

And all the rest was copied out of Byron. 




96 



A STRANGE COURTSHIP. 

The girl I never can forget, 

The one I loved insanely, 
Was P. T. Barnum's favorite pet, 

To put the matter plainly. 

She had two heads, and one was blonde, 

Fine eyes of different sizes. 
With colors varying — I am fond 

Of optical surprises. 

One head could warble and rejoice 

In a soprano mellow ; 
The other with a basso voice 

Could admirably bellow. 

So love immense came over me 
The first time that I met her ; 

She was awake and taking tea, 
And never looking better. 

Dressed in a robe of spotless pink. 

Serenely she was sitting ; 
Four hands were chucking dice, I think, 

The other two were knitting. 

97 



98 A Strange Courtship, 

And when I murmured in her ears 

The love I felt immensely, 
The head with three eyes shed some tears- 

The other blushed intensely. 

She knew that I possessed broad lands, 
That I for marriage panted, 

So when I asked her for her hands 
They readily were granted. 

And at her home each night I 'd call, 
And, by my love grown bolder, 

She sometimes let one blonde head fall 
Serenely on my shoulder. 

And oh ! 'twas most ecstatic bliss 
To have six arms caress me ! 

And when I stooped two mouths to kiss 
Have thirty fingers press me ! 

And grand to have three eyes sublime 
Shine on me, kind and pleading. 

While the remainder at the time 
Were occupied in reading. 

And oh ! 'twas sweet to listen mute 
In glorious summer weather, 

And hear her play the harp, the flute, 
And piano all together. 

Alas ! too brief was my bright dream ; 
She caused my tears to trickle ; 



A Strange Courtship, 99 

I learned too late, in grief extreme, 
That both her hearts were fickle. 

For when she 'd squandered all my wealth, 

And made me meek and pliant, 
She left the town one night by stealth 

With Barnum's Chinese giant. 





THE PIANIST WHO HAD RECEIVED HALF A 
LESSON FROM LISZT. 

From Bingen on the Rhine he came, 

He had been finely puffed ; 
And sixteen masters did proclaim 

That he with chic was stuffed. 

His name was hailed as great and grand, 

Among his German hills ; 
And so he wandered to this land, 

To take the shine from Mills. 

His debut I remember well, 

The house was densely packed. 

And half the city, strange to tell, 
About Herr X was cracked. 

Upon the stage, most debonnair. 

He bounded like a yak, 
With twenty pounds of yellow hair 

Cavorting down his back. 

He wore blue glasses, and his head 

Of charm was destitute ; 
While on his frame, that looked ill fed, 

There hung a rusty suit. 

lOO 



The Piaiiist. 

Forthwith the piano stool he seized, 

With many jerks and shoves, 
And having coughed, and having sneezed, 

Tore off his purple gloves. 

He played a Scandinavian waltz, 

One he had learned by rote ; 
Then a nocturne (with three bars false), 

And then he broke a note. 

The people cheered, and he arose 

And rolled upon the floor ; 
And then played four adagios, 

And smashed a few notes more. 

Red in the face, he still went on ; 

The pedal sprained his leg ; 
But he performed some Mendelssohn, 

And then he dodged an egg ! 

The air was full of doleful sound, 
The hall with oaths was thick. 

But he continued still to pound. 
And baffled every brick ! 

That he was wondrous in his way. 
The audience could not doubt, 

But wonders sometimes cease to pay, 
And so they kicked him out. 



"""""^^^^'^^^^^^y^^^^ 



lOI 



HUMBUG THE GOOD. 

They told me that he lived alone, 
In some foul cave deep in the wood. 

They told me sin he ne'er had known. 

They said he was surnamed " The Good." 

They told me his career of pain ; 

His charity to birds and brutes. 
They told me how he slaked with rain 

His thirst, and how he fed on roots. 

I learned that he for many years 
Had never left his dreary hole ; 

He passed his nights in prayers and tears, 
This Christian man, this pious soul ! 

And so I wondrous pity felt. 

And went with feelings of great awe 

Unto the cave where this saint dwelt, 
And he was out ; but this I saw : 



A warm, snug, neat and cosey den ; 

A chicken frying on a pan ; 
Some whisky bottles (eight or ten). 

Belonging to this holy man. 
1 02 



Humbtcg the Good, 103 

A banjo in one corner stood ; 

Cheap novels lay upon a chair ; 
With these the man all called " The Good " 

Passed the sad, tedious hours in prayer. 

This cenobite that combats vice 

Hath morals, thought I, rather slack ; 

His beads look very much like dice, 
His hymn-book is a euchre pack. 

I met him as I went away. 

His axe seemed sharp, his muscle strong. 
My oroide studs, I grieve to say, 

Now to that holy man belong. 




MY MERMAID MATE. 

I FOUND her one night in an awful storm, 

A few miles beyond Nantucket, 
She 'd been struck by a spar, but still was warm, 

And her head was in a bucket. 

She was even whiter than chalky milk, 

But was not well off for dresses. 
Her skin was as soft as the softest silk, 

And eel grass tangled her tresses. 

No trace could I see of a tail or fin, 
True nymph was she and charming. 

With a crafty look, like a dolphin's grin. 
Which at times seemed quite alarming. 

I made up my mind when I brought her home, 

To do all I could to tame her, 
For a time she seemed to regret the foam. 

But nobody came to claim her. 

I stopped her from gorging on uncooked fish, 

And practising all natation. 
For this did not happen to suit my wish 

In the way of education. 
104 



My Mermaid Mate. 105 

For months she remained in my home austere, 

And slept on my gorgeous Brussels, 
Sipping shad-roe soup with a walrus leer, 

And chewing tough clams and mussels. 

'T was after the end of the second year 

This mermaid with me had tarried, 
I whispered my love in her shell-like ear, 

And we instantly got married. 

She was watched, of course, with a love sincere, 

And a husbandly devotion, 
And was never allowed to loiter near 

The blue and perfidious ocean ! 

But in spite of this she slipped off one day, 

With a peal of taunting laughter. 
And rushed like a rocket down to the quay, 

While I went skurrying after ! 

She dove and swam off in an awful gale. 

Leaving me lorn and frantic. 
And eloped with the most colossal whale 

That lives in the North Atlantic ! 




THE LAY OF A DAHOMEY LOVER. 

Oh, love ! for thy sake and to win thy love, 

Oh, beautiful Naviloo ! 
I would face the lion with famished whelps, 

And the gray hyena too. 

With my boomerang I would sally forth 

Had I right for thee to woo. 
And I 'd fight all night with the two-horned yak, 

And defy the three-horned gnu. 

I would give you plumes from the emu's neck, 

And blood from the kililoo. 
And the savage beasts that howl in woods 

I would slay and bring to you, 

I would steal to hang on your lovely nose 

A ring made of gold, brand new. 
And a necklace I 'd give of leopard's claws, 

With teeth from the old yahoo. 

For a kiss I would brave gorillas fierce, 

I would ne'er for mercy sue ; 
I would steal the fur from the poUychunk, 

And plumes from the cockatoo. 
io6 



The Lay of a Dahomey Lover. 107 

To give you a thrill of joy, I 'd slay 

Of my poor relations a few ; 
I would put to death all my maiden aunts, 

And my maiden uncles too. 

Oh, why do you spurn my manly charms ? 

My form is one grand tattoo ; 
My teeth, as you know, are tinted red, 

And my nose is painted blue. 

If you leave me to smile on other men, 

Oh, treacherous Naviloo, 
I will drink half a quart of English rum, 

And then you know what I '11 do. 

Without bow or arrows or boomerang, 

Without any more ado, 
I '11 go to the forest and be devoured 

By the fierce red wakkaloo. 

And if in my roamings I meet him not, 

I will cross the far seas blue, 
And will die in the gaunt and hairy arms 

Of the wild kerchunkertchoo. 



THE REVERIE OF A CRAZY FARMER. 

I LOVE to hear the neighing of my hens, 
At early morn when smoking at my ease ; 

And I adore the roaring of my wrens 

Haunting the boughs of my ailanthus trees. 

'T is sweet to hear the cackling of my cats, 
As o'er the roof they indolently pass. 

And I revere the purring of the bats 
Attracted by the radiance of the gas. 

'T is sweet to hear the buzzing of the goats 
And the shrill clucking of my favorite mare, 

While all my doves and linnets in their cotes 
Fill with loud trumpet-snorts the evening air. 

I dote upon the screaming of my sheep. 
And the fierce hissing of my English pups, 

And all the fibres in my body leap 

When my old jackass whistles as he sups. 

My spirit loves the braying of the owls ; 

I jump with joy when my pet stallion bleats. 
And in the night my old canary's howls 

Fill me and thrill me with seraphic sweets, 
io8 



Reverie of a Crazy Farmer. 109 

Nothing is nicer than my croaking cocks. 
And I can soar in heavenly realms beyond 

When all my mules chirp gaily on the rocks, 
Answered by bull-frogs snarling in the pond. 

Yes, it is sweet to listen to my cows 

Growling at sundown on the pastures dark, 

And with beatitude upon my brows. 

To hear my fattest hog's loud, honest bark. 

Such sounds have made me happy among men, 
My frame in healthy vigor thus I keep. 

And so I go to bed at half-past ten 

And softly neigh my perfect brain to sleep. 




DUTCH RAILROADS. 

For Amsterdam I started from The Hague, 
The famous windmills on the route to see, 

And with some notions, partly very vague, 
To take a dive into the Zuyder Zee. 

The cars were full of fat, phlegmatic men, 
Whose faces naught of humor did reveal, 

And while we waited, every now and then, 
A spavined engine gave a sickly squeal. 

Lord of my time, I did not marvel much, 
Knowing the train was the 3 :8 express. 

And so I studied my companions' Dutch, 
Smoking in all their stolid loveliness. 

The cars moved on, but soon came to a stop. 
And while I wondered, gazing at the trees, 

I was informed a man had chanced to drop 
A sausage sandwich and a pound of cheese. 

He found them, and the train went on again. 
At the sweet rate of half a mile an hour. 

And people near me marvelled with the brain. 
And spoke of steam and its terrific power, 
no 



Dtctch Railroads. m 

But, ah ! another pause just then occurred, 
While I said things not fit to put in type, 

For they had really stopped, upon my word, 
To let the Burgomeister light his pipe. 

We made three miles before the next day's dawn, 
And then they stopped again, I don't know how, 

To let a peasant step down on the lawn. 
And barter for a frowsy-looking cow. 

He got her for a dozen sacks of malt, 

Being the brother of the engineer ; 
And two yards farther on we made a halt, 

To treat that gentleman to lager bier. 

Then we went back at least a half a mile, 
To get a farmer who had missed the train. 

And after fiddling all around awhile, 

The passengers got out for schnapps again. 

Then we rolled on until the day was o'er ; 

A smoking lamp was given us for light, 
And this gay train, just as it did before, 

Stopped once again, but this time for the night. 

And thus things happened, day out and day in. 
For many mortal and most tedious weeks. 

We lived on herring, cheese, and Holland gin, 
And slept in spite of the old engine's shrieks. 

But, thank the kindly gods, this was the worst, 
We trudged on nicely thus for many a day. 

We left The Hague on July 31st, 

And reached old Amsterdam the 4th of May. 




EVOLUTION IN ANATOMY. 

You are more quaintly made, Elaine, 

Than any girl I know ; 
You have your stomach in your brain, 

Your liver in your toe. 

Your heart doth never palpitate, 
Like low folks', on the left, 

But on the right it throbs in state, 
Of verticles bereft. 

The long black hair I fondly prize 
Grows from your beauteous spine, 

And from the elbow both your eyes 
In soft effulgence shine. 

Out of your swanlike neck extend 
Your long, well-fashioned arms, 

And by their graceful swinging lend 
Additions to your charms. 

Your fingers, which I madly praise. 
Such things as knuckles lack ; 

And you can lie in sixteen ways, 
Yet never on your back. 



EvohUion in Anatomy. 113 

Your nose from out your ankle peers, 

Where surely it should be, 
And when affliction draws your tears 

The flood comes from your knee. 

Unlike all girls in every part 

You are from tip to toe ; 
It took me time to find your heart — 

That 's why I love you so ! 




SCARED BY THE SCRIBBLERS. 

From Liverpool last week I came, 
Assured my trip would merry be ; 

The Celtic brought me o'er the waves, 
This great and curious land to see. 

Arriving safely on Broadway, 

I put up at the best hotel, 
And though they robbed me on the wharf, 

I liked the country very well. 

So, to be posted in all things, 
The papers of the day I bought, 

To cultivate a proper taste, 

And be in foreign manners taught. 

On the first page that I perused 

I learned, with wonderment and pain. 

That fourteen men the previous night 
By knives and pistols had been slain. 

Shudd'ring, I read still farther down, 
And saw, to my intense disgust. 

That sixteen old-established banks 
Since I arrived in town had bust. 
114 



Scared by the Scribblers, 115 

Also, that eighty lives were lost 

Upon a Massachusetts train, 
And that two hundred men were shot 

In Jersey, Delaware, and Maine. 

And then there was a long account 

About twelve maidens, young and fair. 

Found hanging to twelve chestnut trees 
That gauntly grew in Union Square. 

" The Morgue is full," the papers said ; 

And then I read, in blank dismay, 
That twenty aged prisoners 

Were to be hanged that very day. 

And on the telegraphic page — 

Record of ghastly deaths and dooms — 

'T was stated that a ghoul had dug 
A hundred people from their tombs. 

Pallid and shiv'ring in each limb, 
I rushed into my room to pack, 
1^ And, scarcely knowing what I did, 
I took the steamship Celtic back. 



c^^5©(^<3ii^f^«f>«' 



A LETTER-CARRIER'S LAMENT. 

Through the great city, night and day, 
In weather frigid, damp, or warm, 

I roam in one unvaried way, 
A Wandering Jew in uniform. 

No passers by e'er pity find 

For me, aristocrat of tramps, 
And no one dreams that my poor mind 

Can think of aught but postage stamps. 

And yet that mind is wise and strong, 

Containing information rare. 
To speak of which would take too long. 

And if I did, no one would care. 

Now I must every day give forth 
Two thousand letters, let me say, 

From East to West, from South to North, 
At various houses on my way. 

But I am really forced to grieve ; 

I know not why such things can be, 
For no fond note do I receive, 

Nobody ever writes to t7ie. 
ii6 



A Letter-Carrier s Lament, n; 

And oh, the sarcasm of my fate ! 

I, who a beauteous maiden love, 
A girl whose eyes are dark and great, 

A creature purer than a dove, 

Receive no letter by her signed ; 

And yet from 6 a.m. till late, 
I, with vague yearnings undefined. 

Distribute mails and weekly wait. 

And she has said she loved me well, 
That I was her whole soul's delight. 

Perhaps she don't know how to spell, 
Or, much more likely, cannot write. 

Alas, alas, could I obtain 

One blotless line, there would be hope 
She writeth not ; — I wait in vain. 

Perhaps she has no envelope ! 

So I, who think such fortune strange, 

Will put Fate calmly on the shelf, 
And for a most desirous change 

Will post a letter to my myself. 




THE CONFESSION OF A LIBRARY CLERK. 

Each day, with locks well oiled, I stand, 

A literary Mentor, 
And greet with smiles serene and bland 

Our patrons as they enter. 

'T is not alone to give a book 

To any who demand it ; 
But 't is the manner, and the look, 

And the sweet way I hand it. 

And then it is a well-known fact, 

When making a selection, 
I show a most discerning tact 

And judgment in perfection. 

So, when old fogies come to get 

Of novel new the lightest, 
I hand them over Not Dead Yet, 

And calmly smile my brightest ; 

Or vaguely hint of Dead Men's Shoes, 

And if they prove not docile, 
I give them, for their instant use, 

Some treatise on a fossil ! 
ir8 



Con/essio7i of a Libi^ary Clerk, 119 

And should ray tailor to me bend 
And say, " You are my debtor," 

I hand him To the Bitter End, 
To make his nature better. 

When a rich girl comes in all bent 

A passion strong to foster 
For some young man without a cent, 

I hand her What He Cost Her. 

And to all crusty, mean old men. 

Who say they '11 marry never, 
I offer, while I twirl my pen. 

The book. Deceivers Ever. 

My mind, to make a joke a shade 

More witty, has ne'er tarried. 
For when I see a gaunt old maid 

I give her Safely Married. 

And it has always been my forte 
To hand out, without shrinking, 

A copy new of Wrecked in Port 
To old men fond of drinking. 

Played Out I give to those whose store 

Of gold is lost at euchre, 
And Birds of Prey I lay before 

Fat brokers gorged with lucre. 

And thus the happy days go by, 
While I strain brains and fibres 

To please the world and satisfy 
Our numerous subscribers. 



ADVANTAGES OF BEING A CYCLOPS. 

I AM superior to most men I think, 

Having been blessed in most peculiar ways, 

For when I choose my lonely eye to wink 
People shrink back in terror from my gaze. 

And should I be the vanquished in a fight, 

In spite of heroism half sublime, 
I know that I, in my severest plight. 

Can only have one black eye at a time. 

My eye-glass bill is naturally small. 
And I can see, with superhuman ease. 

Thro' any telescope worth handling, all 
Of highest Heaven's prodigious mysteries. 

'T is easier far for me to go to sleep 

Than it would be for men who have two eyes, 

And my imperious glance makes goose-flesh creep 
On any one I choose to magnetize. 



'T is true I 'm troubled when a rebel tear 
Forms in my eye, moist harbinger of woes, 

For then in briny haste to disappear. 

It trickles slowly down my Roman nose. 



Advantages of Being a Cyclops. 

But then it serves me in another way, 
Just as an optic of that species should, 

Because in politics I gain each day. 

Having but one eye for the public good. 

When to my lovely bride I whisper low : 
" Thou art the very apple of my eye," 

/ speak the truth, while others saying so 
Are, strictly speaking, rather prone to lie. 

And when in death I close that eye inspired, 
At last of every guile terrestrial rid, 

Only one copper cent will be required 
To gently rest upon its fluttering lid ! 



121 




HUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



I STARTED like Cummings one beautiful day, 
To hunt lions and things at the Cape ; 

And ere leaving England I carried away 
Material of every known shape. 



II. 



I had rifles and shot, I had powder and balls, 

To last for six natural lives. 
I had pincushions, blankets, and green overalls, 

A velocipede, sandals, and knives. 



Twelve compasses, ink, and a Japanese flute, 

A puncheon of gin and a belt ; 
Ten ramrods, nine daggers, a full bathing suit, 

And two dozen sombreros of felt. 



IV. 



A medicine chest quite chock-full of vile drugs, 
Some volumes of poems, (my own,) 

A dozen of yak-colored cottony rugs. 
And a Jews'-harp to play when alone. 



Hunting in Soicth Africa. 123 



A cannon I bought, which belonged to Charles First, 

A barrel or two of brown soap, 
Ten bottles of Kirschwasser solely for thirst, 

And a mile and a half of new rope. 



VI. 



With these was a set all complete of the Times^ 
And a lot of quaint books in a truck, 

Some music, containing the Normandy Chimes 
And a Testament just for pure luck. 



Torpedoes and dynamite also I had. 
Some tracts, and a case of blue beads, 

A box of Regalias to puff at when sad. 
And a map of the city of Leeds ! 

VIII, 

I also took pickles and bottled rum-slings, 
Some sassafras, matches, and mint, 

And I think 'mid a lot of variety things, 
There were bug-powder, onions, and lint. 



IX. 



So I hunted the bounding and petulant yak, 
The emus, the wildebeests, and gnus, 

Till I had n't a stitch to my suffering back. 
Nor a sole to my waterproof shoes. 



124 H^tnting i7^ SoiUh A/Hca, 



I was kicked by the frantic and winsome giraffe, 

Whenever that monster I met ; 
And the quaggas would laugh a most insolent laugh, 

When they knew that my powder was wet. 

XI. 

The rhinoceros scorned me in weird kinds of ways. 

The wombats eloped when I fired ; 
And the hunting of elands, those wonderful days, 

Did not go as my spirit desired. 



XII. 



The ostriches fell not in gangs by my shots. 

The sacred bulls fled by the score, 
And many a time I slew poor Hottentots 

When I aimed at the mighty casoar ! 

XIII. 

The emus and kililoos always cleared out. 

Before a good spot I could see ; 
And my bullets at present are found in about 

Every second South African tree ! 

XIV. 

So for years I remained, unrelieved, undisturbed, 

In that dangerous country unblest ; 
With my will just as strong and my ardor uncurbed, 

But all that I caught was the pest ! 



A TEMPERANCE LECTURER. 

" Oh, gentle youths, who 'round me throng, 
The promise of this country rare, 

Listen with fervor to my song — 
Of burning alcohol beware ! 

" Taste not the poisoned wines of France, 
Touch not the heating brands of Spain, 

They keep your senses in a trance. 
They steal away your mighty brain. 

" Shun as a plague old Holland gin, 
With rum West Indian never wet 

Your beardless lips, and 't is a sin 
To drink the sticky Anisette. 

" The yellow Chartreuse of the monks 
Is known the limbs to paralyze. 

Leading to fierce Homeric drunks. 
Well battered fronts and sable eyes. 

" Hurl to the ground the warm Lafite, 
Avoid pale Kiimmel on a spree, 

And even Sherry, gold and sweet, 
Will lead you onward to D. T. 
125 



126 A Temperance Lecture, 

" When Rudesheimer in the cup, 

Sparkles like iridescent gold, 
Be sure and never drink it up. 

And save your body woes untold. 

" And oh ! sweet friends of early morn, 
Spurn the malignant cocktail's charm, 

Hold brandy-smashes in high scorn, 
Let fizzes bring your soul alarm. 

" Drink soda and the seltzer pure, 

Apollinaris, Vichy bland, 
And you will evermore endure 

An honor to your native land." 

{Poem continued by Lecturer's Assistant?) 
Friends, I regret upon this day of merriment to cast a 

gloom. 
But the Professor, sad to say, has jimjams in the other 

room. 




THE INVALID. 

He had a number-one catarrh, 
The fidgets, and the spleen ; 

His back was one preposterous scar, 
Anoint with glycerine. 

Dyspepsia claimed him as its own, 
He likewise had the croup ; 

Dropsy he frequently had known. 
Also rheumatic stoop. 

Tubercles gambolled in one lung, 

His liver was decayed ; 
Pimples inhabited his tongue. 

The largest ever made ! 

Asthma possessed his writhing neck, 

And torturing disease 
Made of his spine an odious wreck 

And bullied both his knees. 

St. Vitus on his forehead danced. 

He took three fits a week, 
While champion tumors wildly pranced 

Around his withered cheek. 
127 



1 2 8 The Invalid. 

When free from these entrancing pains 
(The symptoms here were vague), 

He 'd have a swelling of the veins, 
Accompanied by plague. 

Both ears were deaf and one eye blind, 
And boils had marred his trunk, 

And when by whooping-cough confined 
He usually was drunk. 

And yet this hapless, luckless wretch 
Would pass his time away. 

Striving from out his mind to fetch 
" The tnodel modern play 1 " 





A WRECK. 

'T IS true, my dear, that I have lost 
One of my beauteous eyes ; 

But then the other, spared by frost. 
You still can fondly prize. 

Fate willed that I should be bereft 
Of my grand Roman nose ; 

But what of its red bulk is left 
Is fine as beauty goes. 

An Afric plague annexed my hair, 

And I lost both my ears 
While rambling in a tiger's lair 

In Oriental spheres. 

A prize-fight settled all my teeth. 
But still my face is sound. 

As for my arms, they lie beneath 
The pitiless, cold ground ! 

My legs, cut off right near the hip, 
Now fertilize Bull Run ; 

I likewise lost my cheek and lip 
While fooling with a gun. 
129 



i^o 



A Wreck. 



My memory is gone, 't is said, 
If truth must still be told, 

And all the character I had 

Went with my health and gold ! 

But, spite of fate, I say in glee 
No power my heart can chill ; 

And with all now that 's left of me. 
Darling, I love thee still ! 





THE BOTANIST. 

I LOVE to wander in the wood, 
To all the wide world callous, 

And contemplate in joyous mood 
The blue Elyptophallus. 

'T is sweet to lie upon the back 
And study the Ailanthus, 

Or count the prickly petals black 
Of the Psychallixanthus. 

I love to see the calyx blue 
Of the sweet Polchrymoris, 

And the delighful crimson hue 
Of April's Syncathoris. 

Naught gives my spirit such delight 
As the green Follyintha, 

And the suave odors in the night 
Of the serene Stampintha. 

I also love to see the birds 

Dash round the Cardilymphus, 

And watch the peaceful lazy herds 
Feast on the pink Arrhymphus. 
131 



132 



The Botanist. 



For hours in ecstasy I gaze 
Upon the Flavius Crona, 

And pass uninterrupted days 
Smelling the Xantiphrona, 

And oft, to pass the time away, 
Amid the Halmagnolia, 

I write a rondel or a lay 
To the white Psychicholia ! 

But, as I drink in my repose 

Among the Eucalypti, 
I oft mistake a simple rose 

For the green Tyringypti. 

And then, alas, I fail to see 
The beauty of the closes. 

The splendors of the Othus tree, 
Or the sweet Lectrophosis. 




A BLUE-STOCKING. 

Some years ago I madly loved 

A maiden scientific, 
Whose knowledge about everything, , 

Was perfectly terrific ! 

She writes to-day for magazines, 
Essays, and verse, and stories ; 

And in all kinds of abstruse themes, 
She positively glories ! 

Her mind of long forgotten lore, 

Is an unique condenser ; 
She knows by heart John Stuart Mill, 

And likewise Herbert Spencer ! 

Before her comprehensive brain, 

All difficulties vanish, 
She 's mastered Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, 

And French, of course — and Spanish ! 



In Latin she composes hymns, 
And five-act plays in German ! 

While she in Zend or Portuguese, 
Could surely write a sermon ! 
133 



134 A BUte-Stocking. 

But when I spoke of love to her 
In accents chaste, poetic, 

She 'd chat for hours to prove that love 
Was hate turned sympathetic ! 

And show by legends, myths, or dates, 
And curious Hindoo omens, 

That such unintellectual trash 
Was unknown to the Romans ! 

I thought the only way to please 

Her most aesthetic optic. 
Was quietly to go to work. 

And master ancient Coptic ! 

And this I did, and further wrote 
A mammoth life of Moses, 

Also three volumes in blank verse 
About metempsychosis ! 

It took me many years, and when 
I went unto her dwelling, 

I found — she 'd run off with a man 
Who made mistakes in spelling ! 



THE POET'S CURIOSITIES. 

I CALLED on a poet not long ago, 

A poet of wondrous fame, 
Who had souvenirs of all kinds to show 

To his friends whene'er they came. 

He received me well, and brought forth a chair, 

And bade me therein to sit ; 
And added : " My friend, 't is a relic rare, 

For it once belonged to Pitt. 

" It is stuffed with the bones of Clarence, too, 
When he quenched his Malmsey thirst ; 

And the mat with fringe that is under you. 
Is the skin of Charles the First ! 

"The things that you see on the table there 

Are beyond all price and fee ; 
The cloth has been woven from Dante's hair, 

And was given by Burns to me. 



" The bird that is stuffed, hanging up above, 

I wish you would kindly mark. 
For believe me, sir, 't is the very dove 

That flew from Noah's mighty Ark ! 
135 



13^ The Poefs Curiosities. 

" The sword of Damocles I also own, 

A gift from an Indian king ; 
And this cane is Goliath's real backbone ; 

And there, too, is David's sling. 

" That thing in the bottle is Ossian's heart, 

And there is a nail from Ruth. 
My cravat once belonged to Bonaparte, 

And here is Diana's tooth. 

" On the shelf above you will please behold 

Some wonderful things of note 
The asp that made poor Cleopatra cold, 

Fast asleep in Joseph's coat ! 

" If you '11 kindly look in my garden now, 

There are things I cannot pass — 
That mule that is kicking my servant's brow 

Descended from Balaam's ass ! 

" The hatchet with which she doth strike it back 

Belonged to our glorious George ; 
It was found by Emerson down the track, 

A few miles from Valley Forge." 

" Could you make a gift from your priceless store ?'* 

I cried out, in anxious tones ; 
" Oh, give me the ring that old Gyges wore. 

Or, at least, some precious stones ! " 

Then the poet's forehead was wreathed in gloom, 

An oath from his lips was heard, 
As he kicked me out of that wondrous room, 

With the boots of George the Third. 



THE TUGBOAT. 



I 'm forced to work the live-long day ; 

My owner is a heartless brute. 
Who makes me tramp around the bay, 

And sometimes up the Hudson scoot. 



I am not of much strength possessed, 
For I 'm now growing rather old ; 

And yet he never gives me rest, 
In summer's heat or winter's cold. 

III. 

For many a day, the folks I fear. 
Have seen of my sad bulk enough, 

And must be getting tired to hear 
My solemn, melancholy puff. 

IV. 

Excess of work has made me faint ; 

I hate the waves I labor through. 
And have n't had a coat of paint 

Since 1842 ! 

137 



o 



8 The Tttgboat, 



My tears escape in hissing steam, 
But no one heeds my plaintive cry ; 

I wish that with one awful scream 
In some great blizzard I could die. 

VI. 

And oh, the sarcasm of my name ! 

(I was George Washington baptized ;) 
But grief has killed my love of fame. 

And now such things are no more prized. 

VII. 

A feeble wreck of bygone days, 
I have to toil in doubts and fears. 

And without sympathy or praise 

Drag monstrous steamers to their piers. 

VIII. 

But this sad life is too forlorn, 

Release in death will come, I trust ; 

And as my boiler 's old and worn, 
I think to-night I 'd better bust ! 



THE GREAT BILLIARD MATCH. 



Karl Schweizelstreichler was his name, 

Of billiard men the lion, 
And from Kalassendorf he came 

To play with Mike O'Brien. 

II. 

The stakes for this immortal game 

Were golden eagles, twenty ; 
And to lend vigor to their aim, 

Cool Budweis beer in plenty. 

III. 

They banked for lead, and fortune fell 

Before the skill Teutonic ; 
While in the audience rose a yell 

Just like the Philharmonic. 



IV. 

But then he missed the opening shot, 
And cursed aloud in German ; 

Removed his vest, for it was hot, 
Showing a shirt not ermine. 
139 



I40 The G7^eat Billiard Match. 



V. 



So Michael played his shot in glee, 

With Irish banter florid, 
And hit the beer-soaked referee 

Severely in the forehead. 



VI. 



A masse shot he then did make 
Most wondrous skill revealing ; 

But the white ball a curve did take, 
And bounded to the ceiling. 



VII. 



The chandelier was in the way. 
And consequently perished, 

A piece of furniture they say 
The landlord highly cherished. 



VIII. 



For then and there he stopped the game 

Until he got his payment, 
And as they did n't have the same, 

He seized upon their raiment. 



IX. 



Again their talents they employed 
With deep libations loaded, 

Until the red ball (celluloid) 
In fearful ways exploded. 



The Great Billiard Match. 141 



It felled six bar-beats to the ground 
Like blows from Paddy Ryan, 

And into nothingness did pound, 
The teeth of Mike O'Brien. 

XI. 

Then Schweizelstreichler redder grew ; 

To vanquish he was able, 
But playing with a chalkless cue 

He ripped up half the table. 

XII. 

This was too much, the boss arose. 

Two wretched frauds pronounced them, 

And with a stinger on the nose 
Incontinently bounced them. 





THE CONFESSION OF A BOARDING-HOUSE 
SERVANT-GIRL. 

They tell me I 'm a demon born, 
The truth of this I do not scorn ; 
The fact is that from night to morn 
I love to roam o'er hall and stair, 
Brewing sweet mischief everywhere. 
And if found out I do not care, 
For a poor girl, who every day 
Makes up ten rooms and sweeps away 
A ton of dust becomes blasi. 
And when her tiresome work is done 
Enjoys her little bit of fun. 
You know, as wejl as any one. 



Now for confession ! I am led 
By truth to say, I never dread 
At any time to Scotch a bed. 
I know the trick is very old, 
But ah ! to me 't is joy untold, 
On winter night when fiercely cold, 
To know that twenty boarders curse 
Within their rooms, and oaths rehearse 
In ways I dare not put in verse. 
And when a gentleman 's from home, 
142 



A Servant-Girl. 143 

I love among his things to roam 
And put pomatum in his comb ; 
And it my vagrant fancy suits 
To drop a needle in his boots, 
And pick out brush-hair by the roots. 
To place fly-paper in a hat, 
Or tie in knots a new cravat, 
Are joys that I am aiming at. 
Time never, never can destroy 
The exquisite and boundless joy 
I feel, when some old boarder-boy 
Forgets his pocket-book, so dear, 
Upon the table, for I clear 
An honest quarter for my beer. 
When old Brown tells me o'er and o'er, 
" Wake me up, Nell, at half-past four," 
At seven I '11 rap upon his door. 
And if Smith tells me, " Let me sleep. 
For I am tired," the noise I keep 
Before his door would make fiends weep. 
And yet I am a real nice girl. 
Smart from my gaiter to my curl. 
And of all chamber-maids the pearl, 
Free from all malice, good and kind, 
To all my faults supremely blind, 
And for a life of wealth inclined. 
So some nice, jolly boarder may, 
Without my knowing it, some day 
Quietly steal my heart away. 



THE RAILROAD CONDUCTOR. 



He is all smiles, urbane, polite ; 

He 's likewise handsome, as a rule. 
While his sweet voice reminds you quite 

Of Campanini and Capoul. 

II. 

His movements are all full of grace, 
He punches tickets like a god. 

Benevolence doth haunt his face, 
There *s poesy in his slightest nod. 

III. 

No pert, alert young French soubrette, 
No actor unctuous and sleek, 

Is known to have surpassed as yet 
His Chesterfieldian charm and chic. 



IV. 



Then he 's so kind to lozenge boys. 
So courteous to ladies too. 

That it would seem the joy of joys 
To be his brother, etitre nous. 
144 



The Raihvad Co7€d^i.ctor. 



I spoke to him, and heard him speak, 
He deigned to look at me and smile, 

He chattered French, he knew old Greek, 
And had read Huxley and Carlyle. 

VI. 

He kindly told me all his life 
(It was a legend like a bard's), 
, He showed me pictures of his wife, 

And taught me six new tricks at cards, 

VII, 

He sang sweet songs in accents bold. 
From all the operas I preferred. 

And as we rattled on, he told 
The funniest tales I ever heard, 

VIII, 

But ah, just then he chanced to spy 
A tramp asleep beneath a seat, 

Vesuvius glittered in his eye. 

He jumped upon the^agged beat. 



IX, 

He punched his eye and broke his nose, 
He smashed in twain his collar-bone, 

He pounded in his spine with blows. 
He made his wretched body groan. 



145 



146 The Railroad Condtcctor. 



He rent the left ear of the lout, 

And kicked him grandly off the train, 

And yelled : " I '11 eat your liver out 
If e'er I find you here again ! " 

XI. 

Then he came back to me and said : 
" Excuse this row, t' will be my last, 

I think the beastly wretch is dead, 

And, by the way, your station 's passed." 




HER GYMNAST. 

His muscles are like mighty bars of steel, 
His limbs are supple as the nimble deer ; 

Oxen are felled by one kick of his heel, 
And he can crack a filbert with his ear. 

All day upon the horizontal bar 

He turns and twists with most delightful ease, 
Pausing at times to smoke a strong cigar, 

Or drink some vivifying sangarees. 

For hours he stands upon his powerful head — 
A feat that would have made old Blondin wilt- 

And people say that when he goes to bed 
He turns four cartwheels on his cotton quilt. 

No wonder ! For his skin by constant toil 
Is thicker than the leather on my trunk ; 

From nothing daring does his soul recoil. 
Never to faltering has his spirit sunk. 

I have been told that once he deftly caught 
A fierce rhinoceros, with anger black, 

And quicker than the lightning speed of thought 

He hurled him panting on his rugged back. 

147 



148 Her Gymnast. 

He never stops to hail a passing stage, 

But neatly springs up where the driver sits ; 

And, when he deigns to get into a rage. 
He tears old scrap-iron into little bits. 

That 's why I like him, and the time will come 
When weak with love before me he will kneel, 

With stuttering passion, hesitant and numb. 
Breathing his ardor forth with feverish zeal. 

And I shall say, in accents chaste and bland, 
While briny tears from both his eyes will spring 

" Get up and ask my father for my hand, 
You poor, weak, helpless, miserable thing ! " 




TOO SWEET FOR ANYTHING. 



I 'd stop, when I was but a toddling child, 
At every candy store, and through the glass 

Would gaze, until my infant soul grew wild. 
On piles of taffy and red sassafras ! 

II. 

Marsh-mallow always made the water come 

Unto my mouth, and every caramel 
Would palsy all my limbs, and make me dumb, 

Intoxicated by the lovely smell ! 

III. 

I sooner would have owned some candy mixed, 
Than twenty penny marbles or two tops ! 

And I remember how I stood transfixed 

Before those godlike things called lemon drops ! 



IV. 



Nougat, molasses, liquorice, or horehound 
Always would make me most supremely glad, 

And seeing them, in ecstasy profound, 
I envied camels that five stomachs had ! 
149 



150 Too Sweet f 01' Anything. 



V. 



As I grew older, candy was my saint, 

My love, religion, life, and second sense ; 

Before a peanut angel I grew faint 

I knew by name the sugar-Presidents ! 



VI. 



And I can still recall when quite a boy, 

When my big brother gave me sixpence clean, 

The happy hours of wild, delirious joy, 
Orgies of lozenges, all wintergreen ! 



VII. 



Oh, happy age of twelve, when, without stint, 
I gorged as never did Olympian Jove ! 

One endless bacchanal of peppermint ! 

One dream of cinnamon, one heaven of clove ! 



VIII. 



Years passed, I grew to be a man forsooth. 
Sole arbiter of my delightful life, 

And though I did not own one healthy tooth, 
I tried to find a candy-loving wife. 



IX. 



I found her. Heaven for me a bride had made, 
A sickly girl, but one of dainty taste ; 

Together we began the candy trade, 

With fruits besides, and nuts, and Smyrna paste. 



Too Sweet for Anything. 151 



And we have thrived ; we make perhaps each day, 
Two hundred pounds of candy, — all the best ; 

And some is sold, and some is given away, — 
My wife and I together eat the rest ! 

XI. 

We always have, when we sit down to dine, 

Nice liquorice steaks with yellow jujube sauce ; 

And taffy cutlets, cooked in honied wine, 

And frizzled fruit-drops for the second course. 

XII. 

Such are the meals that we most pleasant find. 

Sometimes for change we try some foreign cake ; 
Our servants always have the common kind, 

Our numerous children have the stomach-ache. 




THE ROYAL TOUCH. 



They say that old King Edward the Confessor, 
Who was beloved by his people much, 

Could gently slide down from his Saxon dresser 
And cure the people's illness by his touch. 

II. 

They say that, easier than keeping treaties. 

He could sew up old wounds with royal stitch. 

And mash the devil out of diabetes, 

And knock the holy jim-jams out of itch. 

III. 

He it appears could place his thumb nail nicely 
Upon some plastered wound or sore severe, 

And twenty minutes after that, precisely. 
The patient would be out and swilling beer. 



IV. 



If he shook hands with any passing loafer 
Who had an erysipelas of the jaw. 

He 'd get right up and roll upon the sofa 
And call for drinks in reverence and awe. 



152 



The Royal Touch. 153 



He always cured the sick in his menagerie, 
He saved from croup and hives his Irish hare, 

And by a little touching and some badgery 
He quelled the colics of his polar bear. 

VI. 

The Queen one day had gumboils and hysterics 
Which Edward stopped in his peculiar way, 

Reciting lines and poemlets of Herricks 
And filling her half full oi peach au lait. 

VII. 

And also by his healing fingers glorious, 
And, some historians certify, by look. 

He, over Death eternally victorious. 

Removed the scarlet jim-jams from the cook. 

VIII. 

And more than that, he cured within his dwelling 
A bell-boy who had scrofula and hives 

A played-out gizzard and a frontal swelling, 
And who to-day, historians tell us, thrives! 

IX. 

But ah ! what is for such a man so simple, 
To do for others will his life not save. 

For Eddy had an Exhibition Pimple 

Which dragged his snowy fetlocks to the grave. 



NO EDUCATION. 

I LIVED for twenty-seven years 
Alone upon the prairies, 

And stupid life in such far spheres 
Hardly, if ever, varies. 

For twenty years of all that time 

I never saw white faces, 
So I cannot expect to climb 

Right into modern graces. 

I'd been there yet a-hunting hide. 
An honest, rough civilian. 

Had n't some old relation died 
Leaving me half a million. 

Fact was, I was becoming tired, 
Oldish and fever-spotted. 

And so to this bang-up, all-fired 
Metropolis I 've trotted. 

Ye cougars ! how a fortune lends 
A hoist from a low station ; 

I 've got at least 2000 friends 
To help my education. 
154 



No Education, 1 5 5 



I study ten hours every day, 

Geography and history, 
Piano, fencing, e'carte. 

And many another mystery. 

And I am getting on so well, 
I am so bright and hearty, 

That people say I am a " swell " 
And so I '11 give a party. 

I 've got a band to bang for me 
(The height of my ambition). 

And pictures painted (let me see) 
By an old cove called Titian. 

So I '11 invite a lot of men 

All recognized as famous 
With pencil, piano, brush, or pen, 

Or may the Devil shame us. 

I 've got a list, yes, sure, t 'is here 

And handy for a fellow. 
And by the stars I '11 ask Shakspere, 

The boy who wrote Oihello. 

Bach 's quite the fashion, so they say, 
And plays the harp Eolian, 

I '11 have him ; also, by the way, 
I '11 have to ask Napoleon. 

There 's Csesar too — I 'd like to meet 
That gay and festive jaguar, 

And Macbeth too, a blind old beat 
Who could n't see a dagger. 



1 5 6 No Ed^tcation . 

I '11 have that gal called Pompadour 

And cover her with roses, 
And I '11 remember to be sure 

To ask a duck called Moses. 

He '11 get a card, and so I think 

Will Saul and Ananias ; 
They say the first is big on drink, 

And the other 's rather pious. 

And then there 's that old pard Voltaire, 
Who 's devilish bright and witty, 

Also a bird called Du?nasJ>ere, 
The best boy in the city. 

I '11 have 'em, golly, you just bet, 
This town 's bound to esteem us, 

I '11 dance with Marie Antoinette 
And Romulus and Remus. 

Skollopins ! how I '11 drain the wine 
With jolly Queen Christina ! 

And go for that superb, divine 
Old gal called Agrippina. 

And so I '11 get my money's worth. 
The cream of all the nation. 

And prove there 's nothing upon earth 
Equal to education. 



A BARBER'S TRIALS. 

I WEARY of my life, I am a slave, 

I know no bliss, no pleasure, no delight, 

Because I have to curl and oil and shave 
From 6 a.m. till ^ past lo at night. 

Some men come in and take up one full hour 
To bandoline their poppy little bangs, 

And one fat man is shaved within my power 
Whose triple chin upon his stomach hangs. 

Some customers have warts and wens and moles, 
Rashes and boils which must not be destroyed, 

And others own great dimples and deep holes, 
Which I of course must carefully avoid. 

Some jabber at me when I calmly work. 
But barbers are proverbially dumb, 

Our duties we are never known to shirk, 
Altho' our conversation powers are some. 

And should I make a trifling deep remark 
While among unguents in a Sevres cup, 

The brute I shave, as savage as a shark. 
Will generally say " Now, Bill, dry up." 
157 



158 A Barber s Trials. 

Some want a shave, a curl and a shampoo, 
And criticise my efforts with great wrath ; 

Then they want beards trimmed, and when that is through 
They need their heads soaked in a vapor bath. 

While others wish their hair dyed brown or black 

And some desire ablution of the ears. 
Others want perfume squirted down the back. 

And many cut their thumb nails with my shears. 

Some have long hairs that flourish on the nose. 
And some have even had their eyebrows shaved ; 

And it 's a wonder as the whole thing goes 
That I from an asylum have been saved. 

Once, when I 'd finished one man's awful cheek 
And worked upon the other might and main. 

The beard grew out once more in ways unique, 
And I was forced to shave it off again. 

The Samsons that came in to be recurled 
Are enough to take your very breath away. 

And oft I wonder how the deuce this world 
Can raise such fearful tresses every day. 

They try me — yea, they try me till I 'm glad 
The job is done, and then they stop and stare 

Within the glass, and use up the pomade 

And waste a quart of bay-rum on their hair. 

And then they have their clothes brushed for display 

And strut about like Ministers of State, 
Pay me in doubtful change, and go away 

Stealing a morning paper sure as fate. 



THE GIRL ENTHUSIAST. 

I READ the works of men I thought divine, 
And having all my summer time to spare, 

With drafts on Rothschild and Munroe all mine, 
I thought I 'd beard these lions in their lair. 

I crossed the raging tempest-haunted seas, 
A blessing on my favorites to bestow, 

And being a true and pure born Bostonese, 
I did not tremble very much, you know. 

I read the offspring of their genius pure — 
Those lovely works that foster such delight — 

My heart held all Rossetti's lines secure, 

Swinburnian odes I dreamed of day and night. 

So, when I reached the vast and haughty turn 
That held such genius in its damp control, 

I worshipped London and its great renown. 
While fog and bliss made combat in my soul. 

I stopped at Chelsea on my pious way 
To see the great and wonderful Carlyle ; 

He sat upon his stoop and puffed his clay. 
With an intense, Mephistophelian smile. 
159 



i6o The Girl Riithusiast, 

I saw his beauteous lips, his hair ! his eyes ! 

The glorious brow which knew such lots of French ; 
I knelt before him in entranced surprise, 

And all he said was, " Oop, ye dom auld wench." 

Enthusiasm died upon my lips, 

I rose in anger, blushing and in pain ; 
He was a brute ! Alas, my soul's eclipse ! 

I meekly bowed and took the passing train. 

Then to young Swinburne I did feebly go. 
Hot with such insult, heedless of the rain, 

Hoping to find a sweet, poetic glow. 
Within his eyes, a gentleman of pain. 

He took me in a little private room, 

Bidding my sanguine soul have no sad fear. 

He praised me, thanked me in the perfumed gloom, 
And tried to bite the beauty of my ear. 

He said that I was fairer than the stars, 
More foamy than the foamiest of seas ; 

But ah ! his eyes were lurid like cigars, 
His breath was redolent with sangarees. 

And so I hurled him from me on the mat. 

And to Rossetti's sweet, poetic house 
Hurried without my parasol or hat 

With blushing cheeks and damozelish brows. 

He was at home, and took me by the hand. 
And thanked me for my visit in these words : 

" Thou art a maiden from a distant land. 
Thy weirdness is like that of cherub-birds." 



The Girl Eiithttsiast. i6i 

" Thou hast a tender temple — aye, I wis, 
That dost thee proud in colorful sad ways, 

Let me but plume thee, warbler, with a kiss, 
A gamboge ochre kiss of suavest rays." 

Then I arose and sought his wig's fond roots, 
Tore him asunder and escaped at last, 

And o'er my morning muffins, tea and fruits, 
At Morley's I did think of what had passed. 

The lesson was severe, and then I stole 
Forth from the city and its inner paths 

Down where sweet Tennyson, all heart and soul, 
Calmed with his verse the universe's wraths. 

He was at home, received me like a bird, 
And read me all the Princess and Elaine, ' 

Followed by In Memoriafn word for word. 
And humbly hoped that I would call again. 

He read twelve hours and listened to my praise, 
But when I slept at the concluding verse 

He tore my chignon in fierce English ways, 
And left my presence with a withering curse. 

Then unto Dobson I did meekly rush, 

Saying, " I think Autonoe supreme," 
And he with a divine and Regenee blush 

Treated me instantly to lemon cream. 

So, of the famous men in verse and art, 
I crossed the waves tempestuous to see 

One only had the kindness and the heart 
To leave his own affairs and think of me. 




THE POLITE CITY. 

I HAD a dream that New York, over night, 
Became supremely, laughably polite. 

Religious, too, and it was curious then, 
To see the manners new of many men. 

Who knowing naught of courtesy before, 
Became like Chesterfield's and even more. 

My reverie took me, as I thought of that, 
Into a hatter's store to price a hat. 

And as I entered it the boss arose. 

And, bowing till his fingers reached his toes. 

Said in a loud voice in my deafest ear : 

" Be seated pray, God bless your soul my dear. 

" May angels ever hover round your bed, 
And what may be the last size of your head ? 

" May saints protect me, but I think your brow 
Is perhaps almost the noblest anyhow 
162 



The Polite City. 163 

" That I for many, many a year have seen, 
And may sweet Heaven your soul from trouble 
screen." 

Then I replied without the slightest quiver : 
" May holy cherubim protect your liver. 

" May crowns of glory on your forehead sit, 
But for God's sake just see and get my fit." 

" I will," he cried, " this brim will not distress you ; 
Delightful stranger, may the seraphs bless you. 

" May paradise preserve you thro' life's fever — 
Six dollars is the price for this here beaver. 

" Be therefore counted with God's chosen sheep — 
For by the holy church the hat is cheap." 

I saw the hat was made of walrus hide 

And knew that this urbane old beat had lied ; 

But calmly said, " pray show me up another — 
And may a crown of glory wait thy brother." 

" I have no brother," he with tears replied, 
" But once I had a sister fair who died." 

" Well, then," said I, " may her pure ghost grow 

fat — 
But for the love of Moses bring my hat." 



1 64 The Polite City. 

And then I saw, as easy as a song, 

That in this town polite he 'd not been long. 

Because he took in vain his maker's name 
While hunting other beavers on the frame. 

" May several archangels with blue eyes 

Watch o'er your couch and wave away the flies," 

I said, as forth from some deep box he drew 
A gay sombrero worth a dime or two. 

" How much is this ? you unctuous old man, 
Sell it to me as dirt cheap as you can," 

" This hat," he said, " is very latest style — 

And may St. Matthew on your breastbone smile. 

" May all the minor prophets also bless 
Your beatific eyebrows none the less — 

" Nine dollars is the price of this of late, 
But for your courteous holiness 't is eight ! " 

I saw the wretch intended to deceive, 

And with a haughty brow prepared to leave. 

But thinking better of it, with a sigh 
I punched him in the nostril and the eye 

And said in accents most politely curt, 
" I hope to gracious you 're not hurt .' " 



THE ASTRONOMER. 

Just 3 and 20 hours I pass 

From 4 and 20 daily, 
My optic glued unto my glass 

Watching the Heavens gaily. 

It is my life, my love, and hope, 
My business and my glory, 

To peep into a telescope 
In ray laboratory. 

I study thus from dawn to night 

The universes stellar. 
Substantial by that tremendous sight 

And — lager from the cellar. 

I see what 's going on in Mars, 

And know they shake their flipper, 

And know the politics of Stars 
From Sai'ph to the Dipper. 

Ay ! I behold of folks a few 

In Cetus and Orion, 
And I can draw their pictures too, 

As sure as my name 's O'Brien ! 
165 



1 66 The Astro7io77ier. 

In spite of several miles of space, 
That oscillate between us, 

I know the tricks and the disgrace 
That 's going on in Venus. 

And secrets there are known to me 
In some far constellation. 

Which if I printed here, d' you see, 
Would terrify the nation. 

But I can tell without a fear 
That in the planet Sirius, 

The people for imported beer 
Are perfectly delirious. 

In Saturn, every one alive, 
According to my glasses, 

Takes his gin flip at ^ past 5 
With sugar or molasses. 

I 've studied the religions, too, 

Of people in a comet, 
Some think that Methodism 's true, 

Some knuckle to Mahomet. 

White folks who live as cold as bricks 

In gelid old Arcturus, 
Religiously believe in nix. 

So do my lens assure us. 

In Algal many hundreds there 
Have trouble in the bladder. 

And their sad fate, seen everywhere, 
Is really worse than Sad'r. 



The Astronomer. 167 

While in old Cepheus, starry elf, 

They worship a Dutch Kaiser, 
And if you doubt, why see for yourself 

And strive to grow up wiser. 

So when my eyes begin to tire. 

Gazing in expectation 
On every planet there on fire, 

And every constellation, 

I mix my brandy sangaree 

That all my vitals blesses. 
And drink until more stars I see 

Than Heaven itself possesses. 




T^> 



-#^ 



MY WILL. 
I. 

Since my eventful day of birth, 
Most everywhere I 've travelled, 

And all the mysteries of the earth 
With ease I have unravelled. 

11. 

There is no portion of the globe 
That I have not inspected, 

With patience similar to Job, 
And ne 'er by pain dejected. 



Therefore unto my old friend Bill, 

A gentle, fine civilian. 
If he with trust obeys my will 

I '11 leave a half a million. 



IV. 



I wish when dead that he will see 
My corpse is well protected, 

And have it by rare surgery 
Most daintily dissected. 



My Will. 169 



There he must keep it soaked in oil 
The fat parts and the hollow, 

And with most amicable toil 
My last instructions follow. 



VI. 



I wish to have my sinless heart 
Buried in East Australia, 

And my rum-suffering kidney part 
Interred in South Westphalia. 



VII. 



I wish my old, red Roman nose 

To fertilize Liberia, 
And wish, say seven of my toes 

He 'd plant in North Algeria. 



VIII. 



I want these lungs that cause my groans, 

Across the ocean ferried, 
And with my shoulder-blade and bones 

In Lapland to be buried. 



IX. 



I wish my left eye to be laid 
In Ireland's forests sappy. 

In sweet seclusion in the shade 
Where once it was so happy. 



I/O My Will. 



As for the other, I request 
A tomb for it in Russia, 

And he can lay my hair at rest 
Somewhere in Southern Prussia, 



XI, 



My brawny arms must both be thrown 

Into the Danube river, 
And the blue, arrow-fleeting Rhone, 

Must swallow up my liver. 



XII. 



I want my heels and skin to lie 

In Turkish Macedonia, 
And portions of my withered thigh 

Three miles off Patagonia. 



XIII, 



I wish my sinews to remain 
With both my ears in Guinea, 

My thorax must be sent to Spain, 
My thumbs to old Virginny. 



XIV. 



I wish my spine to rest beneath 
Ohio's passing blizzard, 

I leave to Paraguay my teeth, 
To Tripoli my gizzard. 



My Will. 



171 



Part of my tonsils must repose 
In Texan fields of madder, 

And in the Archipelagoes 
He must locate my bladder. 



XVI. 



But he must do it wondrous well, 
AVith fearful craft and mystery, 

And he must swear to never tell 
My secret or its history. 



XVII. 



And then on resurrection day, 
The thought will much affect me 

How poor old Gabe will have to stray 
A fortnight to collect me ! 




A LOCOMOTIVE SPEAKS. 

I 'm tired of my obnoxious life, 
I 'm overworked and weary ; 

I cannot stand this constant strife ; 
This to and fro on Erie. 

Besides, I 'm getting pretty old, 

Doing this negro's duty, 
I'm badly washed, and poorly coaled. 

And I have lost my beauty. 

My bell don't ring, I cannot shriek, 
My bovine-trap is broken. 

And of my former grace and chic 
I cannot show a token. 

I used to be a fast Express, 
And always space devour. 

But now I run, with utmost stress, 
Say half a mile an hour. 



My engineer is two-thirds drunk, 
And hardly ever stops me ; 

I stop myself when tired and shrunk, 
And then the company drops me ! 
172 



A Locomotive Speaks, 173 

But when there happens on this line 

A jolly old collision, 
I 'm cleaned again, and made to shine 

Enough to blind your vision. 

They run me night, they run me day, 

Refixed, rebuilt, reburnished, 
And make me gently drag away 

Their cars, by Pullman furnished. 

There, I grow mad, my breath gets black, 

With angry throbs I quiver ; 
And in the night I jump the track. 

And hurl them in the river ! 

But I 'in fished out, a?id put to work, 

Altho' the idiots know not 
The awful vengeances that lurk 

Within my breast I show not. 

They never stick a crimson flag 

Upon me to adorn me. 
No ! but they make me pant, and drag 

Great cattle-trains, and scorn me. 

The coal they give 's not fit for food, 

They 're stingy on the rations. 
The engineer is coarse and rude, 

And stops at all the stations. 

So, I have sworn, with angry zest, 

After full many a warning. 
To wait, until my train goes West, 

And bust to-morrow morning ! 



A DONATION. 

I LEAVE my dainty love my hair 
To twist in braids, if duteous, 

And trust she wont try anywhere 
To match its color beauteous. 

I leave, when I shall lie beneath 
The ground refrigerating, 

The pick of twenty of my teeth, 
All sound as what I *m stating. 

Ten of the same she can have set 
Within a gorgeous locket, 

And never can the rest forget 
When dangling in her pocket. 

I also leave my heart so rare. 
Preserved in Martell brandy, 

And she can stick it anywhere 
That happens to be handy. 

I likewise leave my nails, of late 

So very long and rosy, 
For her to use as paper-weight, 

Within her boudoir cosy. 
174 



A Donation. 175 

And she can utilize my ear, 

Which once she loved to storm at, 

Without a particle of fear, 
For her back-entry door-mat. 

I wish she 'd have my bones and shins 
When free from Life's sad Vandals, 

Made into costly corset-pins 
And extra fine knife-handles. 

And both my eyes when petrified. 
Those eyes that ne'er were cruel. 

Would shine real sweetly by her side, 
Set in some useful jewel. 

My corpus which she loved so much, 
Saved from all grave-marauders. 

Will by a skilful surgeon's touch 
Be cut up by my orders. 

It will be boiled down after that, 

In spite of lasting scandals, 
And all my pure, delicious fat 

Will be turned into candles. 

These will be given to her to keep. 

And use with love's discretion, 
To light her in her dangerous sleep, 

And give her dreams expression. 

And then I hope when she doth sup. 
She '11 think of me most sweetly, 

And as she used to blow me up. 
Will blow me out completely. 



A BIRD FANCIER'S LOVE SONG. 

List, beauteous maiden of my soul, 
I love thee more, my fairest. 

Than any kind of oriole. 
The commonest or rarest. 

With ordinary runs of birds 
I would not dare compare thee, 

But really I can find no words 
To tell the love I bear thee. 

I feel that I was born thy prize, 

The first ecstatic minutes 
When I gazed ravished in thine eyes, 

Brown as an English linnet's. 

Thy long and glossy silken hair 

Is softer than a fairy's, 
And its delicious tints compare 

With lory's and canary's. 



When listening to thy dulcet voice 
As through thy throat it gushes, 

The sound, oh dear one of my choice, 
Is like a thousand thrushes. 
176 



A Bird Fancier s Love Song, i ^'j 

Thy lips are like a robin's breast, 

Thy glance is proud and regal, 
And thy grand gestures I attest 

Reinind me of an eagle. 

Thy skin is like a snow-white dove, 
Thy breath is sweet and May-like ; 

And thy rare conversation, love. 
Is parrotesque and jay-like. 

The egg of hope within my frame 

Lies now, thy prize and booty, 
Oh set upon it with love's flame 

And hatch it with thy beauty. 

Why see me here distressed and pale ? 

Pity my heart doubt-stricken, 
Before thee now I humbly quail, 

Oh best beloved chicken. 

What is the costly emu's tail 

Or plumes of cassowary 
Compared to thine hand, wee, and frail, 

And soft as feathers weary ? 

And how can any kind of fowl, 

Tough, colorful or tender. 
Tomtit, or bobolink, or owl, 

Compare with thee in splendor ? 

List, beauteous maiden of my soul, 

I love thee more, my fairest. 
Than any Cuban oriole, 

The commonest or rarest. 



1 78 A Bird Fancier s Love Song. 

These were the phrases and the words 

I used to that fair creature, 
She who had something vague of birds 

In every form and feature. 

She 's been my wife for many a year, 
This girl of grace and culture : 

But I must say, when food is near, 
She now is like a vulture ! 




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THE JOKING DOCTOR. 

I KNEW a doctor years ago, 

Aged forty, fat, and ruddy, 
Who made of puns, both high and low, 

A most important study. 

To men who fasted for a day, 

Whose lungs were but presumption, 

He 'd say in a most joyous way, 

" How great is your consumption ! " 

And added that in many ways. 

His heart was sympathetic. 
And how his skill brought forth more praise, 

Than any known emetic. 

When called upon to use his power, 

And check some angry tumor, 
He 'd cry " how can you look so sour, 

You 're in delicious humour ! " 

And if some sighed " the room needs air," 

Before the mourners present. 
He 'd smile, and gently say, " forbear, 

Your rheum is very pleasant." 
179 



i8o The yoking Doctor, 

My daughter Annie, on the stoop, 
Fell sick in strangest manner, 

This doctor came, and said " it 's croup, 
I '11 ipecac you, Anna ! " 

And when I asked him, " shall I die," 
After some great entreaties, 

He muttered " yes," with one closed eye, 
" Unless you diabetes ! " 

And thus for many, many years. 
This creature has been stunning 

Thousands of helpless, suffering ears. 
By his atrocious punning. 

But I will have my joke on him, 

Altho' to me 't is trying ; 
For sometime back I 've felt quite slim, 

He told me I was dying. 

His bill since last July is due, 
And it will make him holler 

To find (I tell this entre nous), 
I have n't left a dollar ! 




THE SONG OF A CHEMIST. 



I REALLY think it is sublime 

Upon this earth below 
To gaily spend one's fleeting time 

With N, C O. 



And I perpetually bless 
The ever-happy day, 

When first I found out Zn S. 
With Ag and Ba. 

in. 

Cxo and H„ fill 

My heart with utter joy, 
N H4 Ci makes me thrill 

Sr my soul can buoy. 



With acids, alum, salts, and lyes, 
I pass the pleasant hours, 

Chlorides are sacred in my eyes 
I worship oxides' powers. 



1 82 The Song of a Chemist, 



V. 



I glory in the mysteries rare 

Of H,o a 3 : 
While Hg. S, I can declare, 

Brings ravishment to me. 



VI. 



Hg 2 Ci can dispel 

All morbid thoughts of men 
And so can Ag Cy — 1. 

When mixed with Sv — N. 



Last night my marvelous skill to show, 

I took my favorite cat 
And gave it Ms Pi O. 

When purring on the mat. 

VIII. 

It died in agony that night 

With spasms 93 ! 
My calculations were not right 

It should have been P.g. 



IX. 



0,4 H4 N. O, 

Then to my birds I gave, 
Which led them (this is entre nous) 

Directly to the grave. 



The Song of a Chemist. 183 



The secrets now of death and life 

I hold as sure as fate, 
And I would like to see my wife 

Scold if I come home late. 



XI, 



For should she any rage express, 
She '11 find within her tea 

Some baneful Ai Hd S. 
And deadly Ps G ! 




THE MEDIUM. 

I ENTERED in a strange house badly lit, 
And paid five dollars to behold the show, 

But as the greenback was a counterfeit, 
I did n't care a particle, you know. 

A tipsy table blocked up half the room. 
The sullen medium waited at his post. 

And twenty women shuddering in the gloom 
Were waiting there to see their favorite ghost. 

The wizard asked me, " Who do you want to hear, 
For I invoke the spirits that complain," 

And I groaned out in simulated fear, 
" I want to speak to sister Mary Jane," 

He gave a mighty rap with a rattan, 
I feeling all the while he was a rogue. 

And sure enough, I heard some Irishman 

Cry out, " Oim here," with a tremendous brogue. 

And that was all. He did the talking then. 
And said Jane lived in Heaven, far, far away ; 

That she was happier than we wretched men. 
And that she played the cornet night and day. 
184 



The Medmm. 185 

But I knew well that Janie was alive 

And only twanged the Jewsharp to begin, 

And that three times a week she could contrive 
To get uproarious on a quart of gin. 

But I said nought, such was my great control. 
And asked the medium news of Barney Flynn, 

And Barney answered, " Heaven now holds my soul, 
And I am very pure and free from sin." 

While I knew well the voice had vilely lied 
And in the path of truth could never keep, 

For poor old Barney was securely tied 

In one of Sing Sing's cells for stealing sheep. 

" And where 's Mike Duffy's soul " (for that 's tny name) 

I then demanded tho' I knew too well. 
The medium paused and said : " He writhes in flame 

Deep in the sulphurous burning pits of Hell." 

" The devil you say," says I, /won't insist, 
/ *m Michael Duffy I will have you know, 

And then I cracked his false teeth with my fist. 
And it was not a spiritual blow. 

I left him bleeding in a woful plight 

His visage maimed by many a gash and scar, 

And all the spirits that I saw that night 
Were served up hot on Tim O'Brien's bar. 



THE MENAGERIE AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. 

Some wicked boys on mischief bent, 
Some rascals, keen and badgery. 

Crawled into Barnum's Circus tent. 
And let loose the managerie. 

And in an instant every beast 

Forth from his cage came prowling, 

And with his appetite increased 
Stood on the highway howling. 

They happened in their wild stampede 

To cross great forests dreary. 
And found themselves in woful need 

Upon the track near Erie. 

Deep in a ravine they sought rest, 
With nought to eat save thistles, 

And then they heard with hearts oppressed, 
The down-train's strident whistles ! 

The mammoth Greenland Polar bear. 

Made sacrifices votive. 
And offered nobly, then and there. 

To stop that locomotive. 



Menagerie and Locomotive. 187 

It thundered by in smoke and soot, 

Racing the New York Central, 
And did n't leave of that poor brute, 

An eye, a tooth, or entrail. 

Then the fierce bob-tailed Asian yak 

The engine's catcher butted, 
And all his gore upon the track. 

In crimson fountains jutted. 

Then came two valiant chimpanzees, 

Hoping to be more lucky. 
But they were boosted with great ease 

In fragments to Kentucky. 

Then others came and vainly tried 

To stop the iron giant, 
While their wild yells on every side. 

Rose, angry and defiant. 

The camel next was mauled to punk. 

The gnu was blown to cinders, 
And portions of the Chinese skunk 

Were hoisted through the " winders." 

The train still rushed on swift and hard. 

And made light of the tapir. 
While the ferocious Nubian pard, 

Was boomeranged to vapor. 

Then the great elephant arose. 

And with his trunk stupendous. 
Dealt that old engine twenty blows. 

In ways men call tremendous ! 



88 Menagerie a7td Locomotive, 

But he was tossed to Central Maine, 

As also was the Castor, 
And then that old, victorious train, 

Just snorted, and went faster. 

And, as all Barnum's beasts were dead, 

With greatest exultation. 
The engineer, one hour ahead, 

Stopped at the final station ! 





THE CRUEL DOCTOR. 



I LOVE to make some helpless man 
Suffer as fiercely as I can ; 
And watch him slowly fade and languish, 
Blue in the face with drugs and anguish. 

II. 

I love to hear a robust child 
Make its old nurse, by fear half wild. 
Think, when he howls like stricken weasels, 
That it is death, when 't is but measles. 

III. 

I love the most some strange disease 
That baffles my worst remedies ; 
And I am in the best of humors 
When all my patients writhe with tumors. 



IV. 



It causes me intense delight 

At any time of day or night. 

To order beer for bilious ladies 

And keep them on the road to Hades. 



190 



The Cruel Doctor, 



It 's always been my greatest joy 
To get some very little boy, 
And see if he can in his frolics 
Eat ten green apples without colics. 



VI. 



All this is perfect bliss to me, 
And I would give my soul to be 
In far, unknown constellations 
The scourge and terror of all nations. 



And where I could in fiendish glee 
(Myself from all diseases free), 
Make them exist by means terrific 
On air infernally morbific. 




A KIND OF CRITIC. 

With pompous mien and all-important air, 
He '11 say your views are premature and rash, 

And with a grave grandiloquence declare 
That all the verse of later years is trash. 

To satisfy his most aesthetic mind 

In all the modern work he labors through. 

He grieves to state he really cannot find 

One worthy line, one thought supremely new. 

You ask : " And Swinburne ? " Well, he has some fire, 
He will allow ; " but then so very crude." 

Browning ? " Bah ! verbose, of his style you tire." 
Hugo ? "A bard of second magnitude." 

Longfellow ? " Dabbles in all kinds of verse." 
Lowell ? " A fraud, and so was Bryant, too. 

They do not write," he cries, " in language terse, 
As real and god-born poets always do." 

Then he will say, to your intense surprise, 
That Whittier is a rhymester, very low ; 

And, finally, will harshly criticise 

The morbid ravings of that " crazy Poe." 
191 



192 A Kiiid of Critic. 

Rossetti ? *' Never made a decent rhyme," 

He shrieks, while Bret Harte has no lofty flight. 

Byron ? " A loon, he never was sublime." 

And William Morris ? " Don't know how to write." 

And as he talks it seems as if the air 

Were tinted red with Tennysonian gore ; 

While bits of lacerated Baudelaire 
Seem to exist and quiver on the floor. 

And as you gasp and dare not add a word, 
This critic gently smiles and says to you : 

" / wrote a poem which you never heard, 
I think you will admire it, it is new," 

And he will read to you, unhappy friend, 
Lines that begin " How lovely is the night," 

And which I know invariably will end 

With something like *' Beneath the moon's pale 
light." 




THE NEW VERSION OF THE BIBLE. 



They say that many errors grave 
Have neatly been corrected, 

And words that no full meaning gave 
Are crossed out or ejected. 

They wonder how mistakes so rare 
And marvellous e'er could be ; 

But now they solemnly declare 
The Bible 's as it should be. 



Perhaps they '11 make a greater change, 

More singularly weighty ; 
And then the Bible will be strange 

In 1980 ! 

We '11 find out then to our surprise 

That slandered Ananias 
Never or rarely uttered lies, 

But was extremely pious ! 



That David never used a sling, 
And did n't kill Goliah, 

Who was a jolly, poor old thing, 
And never could stand fire ! 
13 193 



94 The New Versio7t of the Bible, 

We '11 read that it was not a whale 
That swallowed luckless Jonah, 

And that poor Rachel of the tale 
Was not the champion moaner ! 

And more, that Absalom's sad fate 

Was merely idle prattle, 
Because he had his hair cut straight 

Two hours before the battle ! 

Nebuchadnezzar was no beast. 

But a sane king most valid ; 
And when he went out for his feast, 

He probably ate salad ! 

We '11 learn that humble little Ruth 

Really possessed no feeling, 
And in the fields of Boaz, forsooth, 

The girl was simply stealing ! 

And that old Daniel, best of men, 

Urbane, serene, and lettered. 
Found that the lions in the den 

Were all securely fettered ! 

Also that Herod, the grim king. 

Never on slaughter gloated ; 
But that he was a peaceful thing, 

And upon the children doted ! 

They '11 make unhappy Samson out 

To be a puny creature, 
Too weak and worn to limp about, 

With palsy in each feature ! 



The New Versio7i of the Bible. 195 

And as for Solomon, I see 

They '11 clear up all his mystery ; 

And prove His Majesty to be 
The biggest fool in history ! 

Then the new version will find fault 

Because no art cures lepers, 
And say Lot's wife turned not to salt, 

But simply turned to peppers ! • 

In fancy and in Hebrew rich. 

Translators in their splendor 
Will tell the whole world which is which, 

And which is witch of Endor ! 

Also that Noah ne'er let the dove 

Go from the Ark (the sinner) ; 
But, as he relished the above. 

He had it stewed for dinner ! 

And so they go on without fear. 

New versions ever seeking, 
Until at last we think we hear 

Old Balaam's donkey speaking. 

Such are the many errors grave 

The wise men have corrected ; 
But they, like words that no sense gave, 

Should also be ejected ! 




THE DELIGHTS OF DOOM. 

I LOVE to visit unknown graves 
When snow the woodland buries, 

And hear the wild wind when it raves 
Over grim cemeteries. 

I glory in the sight of tombs. 
O'er slabs I love to ponder ; 

And I am glad when in the glooms 
Of humid crypts I wander. 

I love to hear the dolorous voice 
Of anguish and of mourning, 

And when men perish, I rejoice 
At death's untimely warning. 

I fain would have the poet's fire. 

To glorify in verses 
Death, doom, and all disaster dire. 

Shrouds, monument, and hearses. 

I see the morgue with eager eyes. 

The pastime never varies ; 
And I reap pleasure and surprise 

Reading obituaries. 
196 



The Delights of Doom, 197 

Death in all forms to me is sweet, 

And I am a believer 
In awful plagues and pests effete 

Polluting towns with fever. 

War pleases me when thousands lie 

Mangled in woods and closes ; 
And of all flowers beneath the sky 

I worship tuberoses. 

Do not misjudge and say I 'm mad, 

And cry against my maker, 
But the truth is, my biz is bad. 

And I 'm an undertaker. 




COOL. 

It frequently has been my lot 
To meet a fat, perspiring man, 

Who roams about, distressed and hot. 
With white straw hat, and broken fan. 

He tells me he has never known 

Such weather since he first drew breath 

That he could stand the torrid zone. 
But heat like this is worse than death. 

He then proceeds to tell you how 

From crowded streets he keeps aloof ; 

And how he made a solemn vow, 
To sleep for life upon the roof. 

His anguish he will then retrace ; 

He says he takes nine baths a day, 
While down his red and bloated face 

Hudsons of perspirations stray ! 

Sudden demise from heat he fears, 
Although prepared to meet the worst ; 

He also adds that eighty beers 

Have failed to quench his awful thirst. 
198 



Cool, 



199 



And every whiff of sultry air 

He swears is most divinely fresh ! 

While giving details everywhere 
About his linen and his flesh ! 

Then, gazing on his broken face, 

And warm, moist hands, you really grieve, 
For the great torment of this man. 

No giant iceberg could relieve. 

But although he may pant and puff, 

Personifying heat intense, 
That man is always cool enough 

To borrow of you fifty cents. 




AN UNDERTAKER'S TRIALS. 

I RARELY dare to write in verse — 

My muse has hesitations ; 
But now I feel I must rehearse 

My many tribulations. 

Business, which used to be so fair, 

Is utterly prostrated ; 
Nobody dies, and New York air 

By health is permeated ! 

I never knew such evil chance 

My noble trade to follow ; 
Men paralyzed get up and dance ! 

Plump cheeks succeed the hollow ! 

One moribund I thought was mine 
(Death's gloom around him hovered), 

In spite of twelve complaints malign, 
Defied me, and recovered. 

And one who groaned through weary nights, 

Seeing the tomb yawn wider. 
Tortured by gout, and mumps, and Bright's, 

Is now a circus-rider. 



An Unde7^taker s T7Hals, 201 

Another, who had sunken eyes, 

Who caught his breath by snatches, 

Is able now to take the prize 
At all the walking matches. 

Diseases dire by all are cured, 

The doctors are not merry ; 
People from sickness are insured, 

There 's no one left to bury. 

The hospitals are giving way, 

The drug-trade cries stagnation ; 

And even the Morgue is madly gay 
With strange resuscitation. 

There are no accidents, no crimes, 

No civil war, no riot, 
No luck for me in these hard times, 

Abominably quiet. 

It would not cause me much surprise 

(O Death, my patron, pardon !) 
To see your Greenwood, with these eyes, 

Turn to a weiss-bier garden ! 

And, if this keeps on, bye-and-bye 

Life will become perennial. 
And no one will consent to die 

Until the next Centennial ! 



PLEASURES OF ROYALTY. 

The happiness of queens and kings 
In Europe now is not progressing : 

A wrong most sad above all things, 

One, we might say, that needs redressing 

For every one who wears a crown 
In proud and haughty exultation, 

Now represents, in field or town. 
The target of a living nation ! 

No powerful prince can venture out 
To ride in all his gorgeous trappings, 

Minus some communistic shout. 
Or very deadly pistol-snappings ! 

And should some princess fair and bright 
Drive forth to festival or marriage, 

A ton of murderous dynamite 

Will go off underneath her carriage ! 

We would not be at all surprised 

To hear that sovereigns most splendid. 

Once by the people idolized, 

Had life by plug-shot softly ended ! 
202 



Pleas^tres of Royalty. 203 

And that grave "premiers" bold and proud, 
Great diplomats that naught had staggered, 

Had been torpedoed in a crowd, 
Or with great local color daggered ! 

The King of Italy some day- 
May find rat-poison in his " pony," 

Or later, to his great dismay, 
A bombshell in his macaroni ! 

And sometimes with his brilliant troupe 

Of officers, young Wilhelm Kaiser 
May find within his sauerkraut soup 

Some strychnine for an appetizer ! 

As for the list of murdered earls 

Or mighty dukes assassinated, 
I 'm sure 't would make for boys and girls 

A royal weekly — illustrated. 

So, soon a common thing 't will be 
To have dispatches cross the ocean, 

" Four kings were shot at half-past three ; 
We cable it without emotion ! " 








A WRITER. 

He does not know his English well, 
Our vulgar words he scorns to praise, 

And, consequently, thinks it swell 
To trifle with the Gallic phrase. 

He writes amour instead of " love," 
Whenever he can find the chance ; 

Colombe is more gentil than " dove," 
It gives the essence of all France. 

And when he scrawls his mongrel prose, 
By many foreign terms disguised. 

He Frenchifies a simple " rose," 
And has it down italicised ! 

For "darling," cherie you will find 
In every chapter, sure as fate ; 

And for the glory of mankind. 
He would not miss a tete-a-tete ! 

In adjectives in euse and ante, 

He doth continually speak ; 
His heroine is ravissante, 

For "beautiful " would not be chic! 
204 



A Writer. 205 

Boudoir, efinui, cafe, argot, 

His standard favorites always are ; 
And he for worlds would not forego 

The sempiternal boulevdrd. 

His scene is laid upon the Seine, 

From him what could you ask of more ? 

The lover calls his girl jua reine, 
And she calls him 7non doux trhor. 

And then his proper names, with zeal 

He could not very well forget ; 
He dazzles us with Claude, Emile, 

Pauline, Adele, and Henriette. 

Tired of the hackneyed terms ? Not he ! 

His grand sangfroid you little know ; 
He 'd write a page for vis-a-vis. 

And twenty more for dos-h-dos ! 

And, as you read his lovely livre, 

Which wonderment from stones could wrench, 
You marvel how he still can vivre. 

And why he does not write in French ! 




WHAT IS IT? 

The man unto the smiling lawyer said, 

Hearken, good friend, and gain an honest fee, 

That will be novelty : now bend your head, 
Stop smoking cabbages, and list to me. 

I 'm much perplexed, my mind is quite undone, 
Through laws of nations I can't fully see ; 

I want to know about my youngest son, 
My little infant's nationality. 

My wife and I dispute the live-long day, 
I say he 's that and she declares he 's this^ 

So if you '11 settle it you '11 get good pay 
And fill our aged ventricles with bliss. 

The facts are these : I am of English stock, 

Tho' born in Madagascar years ago. 
My wife is Scotch descent, from Bevis Loch, 

But she saw light in Southern Borneo. 

When we were hitched we wandered o'er the world 
In a Dutch schooner, pray do not forget. 

But at the mast the French flag was unfurled. 
Because we did some contraband, you bet. 
206 



What is It ? 



207 



We lay in Turkish waters when my son 

Was cabin-born, in number 22. 
The captain was a German boy from Bonn, 

And three were only Chinese in the crew. 

Well, said the lawyer, if the schooner lay 
In Turkish waters, let no trouble lurk 

Within the furrows of your forehead gray, 
Because, if so, the infant is a Turk. 

Indeed ? but, lawyer, I forgot to say 
The babe is a nigger : we are white. 

Account for this discrepancy, I pray. 

And set two luckless, blundering minds aright. 




BEAUTIES OF PRONUNCIATION. 

I LOVE the beauteous verse divine, 

Of that Jew genius, Henri Heine : 

And Longfellow wrote lovely lines. 

About our great aborigines, 

While Keats, who lies the ground beneath, 

Wrote verses to the river Lethe. 

Dear Quarles and Hood, I love them both, 

But I prefer the songs of Goethe. 

And all the sonnets gay and airy 

Of that sweet spirit Baudelaire. 

I also let my musings amble 

Throughout the works of Thomas Campbell. 

Keen to the taste as autumn russet 

Are all the verses of De Musset. 

But I must cease, the door secure 

And spend an hour with Tommy Moore. 




208 




IMAGINATION. 

[A tramp soliloquizes before an enclosed tombstone.] 

Yes, thou art dead, my unknown friend, 

Brought to the final station ; 
You 've fought until the bitter end. 

And now enjoy salvation. 

There in the heavens where you have flown. 

There is no thirst or fasting — 
Nothing but harps and pure ozone. 

And glory everlasting. 

Your charming corpse lies dismal here, 
Wrapped in its shroud of satin. 

And on the stone I see appear 
Your praises in bad Latin. 

But ah ! while in the stainless sky, 

Your soul in bliss is sailing ; 
Your bones, I see, are guarded by 

A most expensive railing. 

I never knew you in this life. 
And tho' I 'm guessing blindly, 
14 209 



2IO 



Imagination . 



You would have helped me in the strife, 
I think, and likewise kindly. 

Within my very heart of hearts 

Religiously I feel it ; 
But I have not the mourner's arts 

To quietly conceal it. 

You would have lent me shining gold 

If you had only known me. 
And when I lay half dead with cold, 

Mercy you would have shown me. 

You would perchance have said to me. 

Lying intoxicated, 
" Here, take my pantaloons, and be 

A man regenerated ! " 

And p'rhaps you would have given, you know, 

Your last poor drop of water. 
And even, beholding all my woe, 

Have offered me your daughter. 

Had you been spared another year 
From boils, and gouts, and freckles. 

You might have left to me some here, 
Say, twenty thousand shekels. 

And likewise by your influence, too, 

Ere going to old Davy, 
You might have got me, say z. few 

Fat places in the Navy, 



Imagination. 



211 



Ah, yes, indeed, this might have been, 
In happier, by-gone hours. 

And that is why, the worse for gin, 
I leave these faded flowers. 

And as old iron they say for sure, 
Finds markets never failing. 

To keep your holy memory pure, 
I think I '11 steal your railing. 




TASTEFULLY TATTOOED. 

Do I love poetry ? Indeed I do, 

I love it as the young lark loves the day ; 

In fact, I know I love it more than you, 
And I can prove the assertion right away. 

When I by all its glory was subdued 

For the first time, I went, without a drink, 

Unto a Turk, who on my arm tattooed 
Four of old Watt's hymns in Indian ink. 

Later he pricked upon my spine, in red. 

The whole of '* Hiawatha," neat and clean ; 

And on the summit of my hairless head 
He put the opening of " Evangeline." 

Upon my shins, in letters large and plain, 
Dobson's " Antonoe " is now displayed ; 

While on my shoulder-blade is sweet " Elaine," 
And Tennyson's immortal " Light Brigade." 

The " Morte d' Arthur " is frescoed on my feet, 
And all " Childe Harold " 's on my eldest toe ; 

My instep holds the works of Keats complete. 
While on my wrist the songs of Swinburne glow. 

212 



Tastefully Tattooed. 213 

Do I love poetry ? Why, all Shelley's odes 
Upon my breast in blue and crimson stand ; 

My cheek's a mass of Whittier, and loads 
Of Hugo's verse are punctured on my hand. 

Have I some Aldrich ? Why, of course ; just spell 
The poesy on my throat, and you will find 

His quatrains, sonnets, and his " Baby Bell," 
With other charming offsprings of his mind. 

Then I have Lowell, Goethe, Milton, Young 
Engraved upon my collar-bone with care ; 

And see ! my elbows, forehead, lids and tongue 
Form one great labyrinth of Baudelaire. 

As for my lips, you can perceive they hold 
Some verses of old Homer, famous yet ; 

While on my chin, in letters of pure gold. 
Are all the noble lyrics of Burdette. 

And if you '11 treat to mutton chops and beer, 
Or better, to some spring shad with the roes, 

I '11 take some poem of your own, my dear, 
And will immortalize it on my nose ! 



A DREAM. 

A SPIRIT told me in a wondrous dream, 

That dead men's souls returned in other clay, 

And if I held my tongue and would n't scream, 
He 'd point them out to me upon Broadway. 

" Invisible, I '11 amble by your side 

To-morrow afternoon, without a doubt," 

And, as the festive spirit had not lied. 

He came at half-past three and we walked out. 

" That man you see who totters over there, 

Full of gin cocktails lacking nerve and strength. 

Drunk as an owl and laden down with care, 
Is but a later form of Leo Tenth. 

" That favorite actor who has just passed by. 
Is St. Luke, redivius, and that tramp 

Who has a plaster on his weather eye. 
Is old Aladdin, who has lost his lamp. 

" Yonder old loafer, who doth quench his thirst 
In foaming beer, is Croesus, you can bet ; 

That fat car-driver is great Charles the First, 
And yonder dame is Marie Antoinette. 
214 



A Dream. 215 

" That nun was once the Empress Josephine, 

That banker was old Judas years ago, 
And yonder cracked-voice tenor, poor and lean, 

Was sweet Rubini, tho' he does not know. 

" See there ! that coward who has struck a boy, 

He 's Caesar, mighty Caesar, I can tell. 
And yonder nigger selling corn with joy. 

Is the divine and gentle Raphael. 

" That organ-grinder with his monkey there, 
Is poor Rossini standing near the Globe, 

And that man waiting with impatient air. 
Stamping his feet, is no one less than Job. 

" Yonder Bohemian in the paper writes ; 

He 's Shakespeare, but he has n't found it out, 
Nor has the world, for he gets drunk o' nights. 

And spends his splendid salary on a bout : 

" That rum old cove who keeps the hardware store 
Will sharpen axe or hatchet while you stop. 

Be very careful well to look him o'er ; 

He is George Washington, his nation's pop." 

" And who, oh, who are you ? " I wildly said, 
And paused to hear him grunt,as I grew paler, 

" Look here, young man, you 're drunk ; go off to bed ; 
You owe me $20 ; I 'm your tailor ! " 



A RHAPSODY. 

I WILL sing of her sweet lips in triumph, 
For I kissed them last night the first time, 

Soft as roses and tender as 

Holy Moses ! I can't find a rhyme. 

Whiter far than a pearl or pale silver, 

I have seen her wee, cunning teeth shine, 

Bright and radiant as moonbeams and 

('T is my Muse's fault, surely not mine). 

When I saw her blue eyes with tears moisten, 
When I spoke of my passionate pain. 

The rare dew of a flower is no 

Ah ! Great Scott, has this happened again ? 

Never mind ! I 'm a poet and genius ; 

I '11 find rhymes and new rhythms and verse 
To immortalize her and to 

That will do ... . this sweet poem *s a curse. 




216 




ONE KIND OF WRITER. 

He always says " Mon Dieu " for God, 
A douce amie he calls his girl ; 

Bizarre's his English word for " odd," 
An6.perle is prettier than " pearl." 

A vis-ct-vis and tete-h-tete 

In every chapter greets the view, 
While chic turns up as sure as fate. 

Accompanied by rendezvous. 

No Janes nor Anns his fancy please. 
His heroines are far more sweet ; 

And they are known as Heloise, 
Fifine, Hortense, or Marguerite. 

A sacrebleu expresses rage, 

A Marchioness is writ Marquise. 

Gamins and cocottes grace each page, 
And boulevards come in with ease. 

Bouquet^ chignon^ corsage, I think 
You '11 find in bunches everywhere ; 

And then his heroes always drink 
Their cognac from a petit verre. 
217 



2i8 One Kind of Writer. 

Potage and bisque are down for soup ; 

Douleur atroce goes well for pain ; 
Languir is daintier far than " droop," 

And any headache is migraine. 

Fumer for him is good for " smoke ; " 
Centinie 's a better word than groat, 

As well asj'eu dejnot for " joke," 
Knd pardessus for " overcoat." 

And when I see my Saxon tongue 
Tortured by every Gallic wrench, 

I wonder why the man's not hung, 
Or why he does n't write in French. 




RETURNED WITH THANKS. 

God, weary of his Heaven's perpetual joys, 
Took the fair form of man and came to earth. 
To judge himself of all its boasted worth, 

And see his myriads of girls and boys. 

The elevated railroad's beastly noise 

Annoyed his spirit, and he found no worth 
At Tony Pastor's though he gave him birth, 

And he was angry with his human toys. 

So he sat down, and in his fury penned 

A Poem most Celestial and Divine, 
On all the sights that worried him that day. 

This to the Atlantic he did swiftly send. 
And got it back the next night, about nine, 

Marked ""Very crude production. T. B. A." ! 




219 



THE BAYADERE 



OTHER SONNETS. 



By FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS. 

'Author of Honey and Gall," " Shadows and Ideals," " The 

Witch of En-dor," " Dreams After Sunset," 

" Flasks and Flagons." 



Limited edition of five hundred copies, vellum paper, 
bound in half morocco and vellum cloth, rough 
edges, gilt top. Price .... $3.00 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London. 



HIO 89 i 



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BINDERY INC. |§ 

^^ DEC 88 

^!^^ N. MANCHESTER 
^ ^ INDIANA 46962' 




